Annette would have thrown herself on the ground, screaming with horror, if Sylvie's wild fury had not absorbed all the misery of the world. She had fallen on her knees on the sidewalk, almost lying on the child, whom she lifted up and shook with mad cries. She called to her, she called to her, she denounced . . . Whom? What? Heaven, the earth. . . . She was foaming with despair and hatred. For the first time Annette saw in her sister the frantic passions that Sylvie bore without knowing it in the depths of her nature, passions that her life till then had spared her from expressing. And she recognized them as those of her own blood. The wildness of this grief prevented her from yielding to her own. She was obliged, by reaction, to remain strong and calm, and she did so. She took Sylvie by the shoulders. The screaming woman struggled with her; but Annette, leaning over her, lifted her up; and Sylvie, submitting to this commanding gentleness, became silent, raised her head, saw the circle about her, threw a fierce glance towards it and, with the child in her arms, reentered the house without a word. She had crossed the threshold. Annette was going in after her when she saw Marc at the corner of the street on his way home; and, in spite of her lacerated love for the poor little girl, her heart bounded in her breast. What a joy that it wasn't he! She ran to Marc to prevent him from seeing. At her first words, Marc turned pale and clenched his teeth. She led him away from the scene; she told him that Odette was seriously hurt. But he, with the distrustful intuition of a child, knew that she was dead; and with his clenched fists he tried to drive the terrible thought away. In spite of his agitation, he was still thinking of himself, his own attitude and the people who were passing. He noticed that his mother was walking bareheaded beside him in the street and that people were looking at them, and this embarrassed him. His annoyance contributed to calm him. When they had gone halfway, Annette, seeing that he was steadier, told him to go home alone. She returned hastily to Sylvie. She found her prostrated, sitting in a state of collapse in a corner, near the bed of the little dead girl, unable to hear or understand, breathing noisily like a wounded animal. Her workers were busy with the child. Annette bathed the little body, dressed it again in white linen, laid it back in the bed, just as on those faraway evenings--yesterday--eternally far away, when she had listened to the whispered confidences of the child. When this was finished, she went over to Sylvie and took her hand. Moist and cold, the hand lay limply in hers. Annette pressed these fingers from which the life seemed to have withdrawn, but she did not have the courage to whisper a tender word, for it could not have penetrated through the wall of despair. Nothing but the sisterly contact of their bodies could make her pity slowly find its way through. She wrapped her