“It was about the time of the discussion of the epitaph that the relics from the recent raid were exposed for view in the little museum at the school. There was no address found on the body, and almost the only personal effect that had survived the terrible fall was a photograph of a woman, young and fair-haired, with the inscription, ‘Meine Mutter,’ which I translated to the admiring villagers as meaning, ‘My Mother.’ Nothing else. I went to tell the old Frenchman and ask him if he had seen the curiosities. I found him sitting in the garden of the cottage where he lived, in the little shed he called his workshop, where the tombstone had been brought. To my surprise, he was lying on the ground, and beside his open hand lay a chisel. “‘What is it?’ I asked him. “He started up when he saw me. ‘I was tired,’ he answered confusedly. ‘_Fatigatus opere_, weary with labor. _N’est-ce-pas?_’ and his poor old face relapsed into a sad attempt at a smile. “‘But you have not begun to labor,’ I answered, trying to joke away an impending feeling of tragedy that I but dimly understood. ‘Why do you not do the work?’ “‘Ah, I cannot. My hands are old, and I can no more.’ “Then I saw that his hands were shaking, and I grew alarmed. I could see that the strain of the last few days was telling on him. He seemed years older. So I gently helped him up and took him indoors, where the good woman of the house put him to bed. I asked her how long he had been sick, and she told me that he had gone out that afternoon, looking well, and intending to buy a chisel and visit the little museum. She had not seen him again till I brought him in from the garden. “From that time the poor old man seemed to grow feebler and feebler, and we began to think that his last joke had been cracked and all his troubles ended. He seemed to lose all wish to live, lying on his bed without a word, and only taking food when it was almost forced down his throat. I frequently visited him and tried to console him. For the one thing that now troubled him was that he would not be able to execute his commission before he died. ‘Never have I promised and not perform,’ he would say. ‘Oh, for one day of my _pristini roboris_—my youthful strength.’