"The child has opened his eyes!" said she, as she hurried down-stairs for some article required. Presently we heard a man sobbing softly; and then--yes, a faint tiny voice. And after that--nothing, for a long while. But at last at last! a miserable, awful cry, and a heavy, heavy fall. And then came out John's wife, at sight of whose face we turned sick at heart, and followed her silently down-stairs. We knew what had happened: the little one was dead. He had opened his eyes, and had probably known his father; for the light that his presence always kindled there had come into the little white face. Jean, too ready to clutch the delusive hope, fell a-sobbing with rapture, and kissing the little fair head. The child tried to speak, and did speak, though but once. "He said, 'Ba-Bou' quite distinctly," said John's wife, "and then such a pretty smile came; and it's--it's there still, on his little dear _dead_ face, John." Here she broke down, and went into a passion of tears, sobbing for "poor Jean! poor Jean!" He had fainted for the first time in his strong life, and so that blessed unconsciousness was deadening the first insupportable agony of his dreadful wound. They carried him out, and laid him on his bed, and I believe the doctor bled him. They hoped he would sleep afterward from sheer exhaustion. Presently poor Jules came to us, crying like a child, and begging us to go to his Rose to try to rouse her, if only to make her weep. She had fallen into a dry depth and abyss of despair--an icy crevasse, where even his love could not reach her. Since she had known the child was dead, she had not stirred, except to resist, moaning, every attempt to lift her from the floor, where she had cast herself, and except that she shuddered and repulsed Jules, especially, whenever he went near her. We went into the room where she lay. My good brother stooped, and spoke to her in his tender, manly fashion, and lifted her, with a resolution to which she yielded, and seated her on a sofa beside his wife, whose kind arms closed round her suffering sister. And suddenly some one had come in whom Rose could not see, for her eyes were pressed to that womanly bosom. John's wife made a little warning gesture that kept us others silent. It was poor Jean himself; he came in as if in search of somewhat; he was deadly pale, and perhaps half unconscious what he did. He was without shoes, and his clothes and blond hair and beard were tumbled and disordered--just as when they had laid him on his bed. When he saw Rose, he came straight up to her, and sat down on her other side. "Ma pauvre Rose," said he piteously-- She gave a cry and start of terror, and turned and saw him. The poor fellow's broken heart was in his face; she could not mistake the sweet-natured anguish there. Half bewildered by his inconceivable grief, he had gone to her, instinctively, like a child, for sympathy and comfort. "Ma pauvre Rose," said he, brokenly; "notre petit--"