"I will sign it," said the sick man, holding out his hand for the pen. He had dictated the letter with some pauses and gasps for breath, but in the uniform indifferent voice that he had adopted since the beginning of the conversation. He dropped the pen, when he had scrawled the signature with almost powerless fingers, and his hand fell heavily on the bed again. "That is done," he said, and, after a pause, continued: "Monsieur, circumstances have compelled me to place a confidence in you, with which, at another time, I should have hesitated to burden you, fearing to cause you inconvenience." "You cause me no inconvenience, and I shall do my best to carry out your wishes," said Horace. "In return, I must beg of you to keep yourself quiet now." "One moment, Monsieur--my money you will find in that desk, as I have said; after paying my funeral and other expenses, you will, I think, find there is still the sum left that I have named in my letter. I must beg of you to hand it over to my sister. I can trust her so far, I believe; and I will not have my child a pauper on her hands, dependent on her charity for food and clothing; otherwise it might have been wiser--however, it is too late now, and in two of three years much may happen. One word more, and I have done. I have no sort of claim on your kindness, Monsieur, but you have proved yourself a friend, and as such I would ask you not to lose sight of Madelon entirely. She will be but a friendless little one when I am gone, and I have not much confidence in her aunt's tender mercies." "You may depend upon it that I will not," said Graham earnestly, and hardly thinking of the sort of responsibility he was accepting. "Thank you; then that is all. And now, Monsieur le Docteur, how long do you give me?" "How long?" said Graham. "Ah! how long to live?--to-day, to-night, to-morrow? How long, in short?" Then Graham spoke plainly at last, without further reticence or concealment, so useless in the face of this indifference and levity, real or affected. "M. Linders," he said, "the chance on which your recovery hangs is so slight, that I do not think it probable, hardly possible, that you can live over to-morrow. Will you not try to understand this?" There was something so wistful and kind and honest in Graham's expression as he stood there, looking down on his patient, that M. Linders was touched, perhaps, for he held out his hand with a little friendly gesture; but even then he could not, or would not abandon his latest pose of dying _en philosophe_.