Among the persons who stopped to chat with the concierge was the singer who lived below the sick man. This singer was no other than Virginie, who had not succeeded in making a fortune by riotous living. Dissipation soon banishes the hues of health, late hours circle the eyes, fatigue of all sorts impairs beauty, and beauty was almost the sole possession of Virginie, who, with three years added to her age, had fewer lovers than of yore. All this was the reason why she was living in the Marais, in a very modest fifth floor apartment; that she often passed her evenings in working, because she no longer had some pleasure party for every evening; and lastly, that she sang over her work, because she had retained her voice and her cheerfulness. Virginie had a kind heart, she had never sinned except through excess of sensibility. There are women who have no sensibility except where pleasure is concerned, but Virginie was still capable of sympathy with the unfortunate. On learning that there was a young man above her who was alone and ill, Virginie asked the concierge: "Have you been up to see if he wanted anything?" "I haven't been yet because I've got to watch my stew; but I'll go up to-night." "Well! you are a good one! Suppose the man gets sicker before then? I'll go myself. I'm only sorry I didn't know it sooner, for I sang all last evening, and when a person is feverish he don't like trills; but I was in good voice! I could have sung _Armide!_ I'm going up to see my neighbor. He's young, you say?" "Why, yes--twenty-nine or thereabouts." "Poor boy! perhaps he's lovesick. But no, men never lose their health for love. I'm curious to see him; if he was old, I'd go all the same; but a young man is always more alluring." Virginie went upstairs, and kept on to the sixth, passing her own door without stopping. The key was on the outside of Auguste's door. "When a man lives in this hole," thought Virginie, "he don't eat green peas in January." And she tapped softly on the door, saying aloud: "It's your neighbor from downstairs, monsieur, come to ask if you want anything." There was no reply, so she decided to open the door noiselessly. She entered the hovel, in comparison with which her room was a palace. She went to the bed on which lay the sick man, whose fever had increased, and who no longer had the strength to open his eyes. She leaned over him and gave a little shriek when she recognized Auguste. That shriek caused the invalid to open his eyes; he tried to give Virginie his hand, while she threw herself upon him, kissed him again and again, wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and the next moment drenched his face with her tears, crying: "It is you, Auguste! it is really you! O mon Dieu! in this garret! on this wretched bed! My poor dear! sick, alone--and I didn't know it! Poor Auguste! and I sang last night while he was groaning here! Oh! I feel as if I should choke! I can't say any more."