"How are you, M. Odiot?" she said, holding out her hand, and she spoke these simple words so gently, so humbly—alas! so tenderly too—that I longed to throw myself on my knees before her. But I had to answer in a tone of icy politeness. She looked sadly at me, lowered her great eyes with an air of resignation, and went on with her work. Almost at the same moment her mother called to her to come to her grandfather, whose condition had become most alarming. For some days now he had lost voice and movement; the paralysis was almost total. The last gleams of mental life were extinguished; only physical sensibility and the capacity for suffering remained. The end was not far off, but in this energetic heart life was too deeply rooted to be relinquished without an obstinate struggle. The doctor had foretold that his agony would last a long time. Still, at the first appearance of danger, Mme. Laroque and her daughter had tended him with the passionate self-sacrifice and utter devotion which are the special virtue and glory of their sex. The day before yesterday they broke down exhausted. M. Desmarets and I offered to take their places by M. Laroque to-night, and they agreed to have a few hours’ rest. The doctor, who was very much fatigued, soon told me that he was going to throw himself on the bed in the next room. "I am no use here," he said; "the thing is over. You see the poor old fellow doesn’t suffer any more. That lethargic state is not painful. The awakening will be death. So we can be quiet. Call me if you see any change, but I think it won’t come till to-morrow. I’m dying for a sleep." He gave a great yawn and went out. His language and his conduct before the dying man had shocked me. He is an excellent man; but to render to death the respect that is due to it, one must not see only the brute matter it dissolves, but believe in the immortal essence it releases.