She could not finish the sentence. He looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away to hide the tears the unhappy mother's voice brought into my eyes. "If I could be of any assistance here," he said, hesitatingly; "it costs me a hard struggle to leave you, but you will find that the night will pass quietly, and to-morrow we shall be relieved of all anxiety." "To-morrow!" she repeated, dully. "You are right; to-morrow we shall be relieved of all anxiety." Turning abruptly away, she bowed her face on the pillow of the little boy, whose chest was beginning to heave painfully. The artist had already gone to the door, but stopped, saying: "Since you prefer it, I will give up the performance. I am so agitated that it would be a poor piece of acting; and then--if he is really--no, it is better so. They must do as well as they can. Farewell!" I felt how deeply each one of these careless words wounded her. But no sound or look betrayed that she was conscious of anything save her maternal anxiety. Yet--when, half an hour later, a boy brought a note in which was scrawled in pencil, "I had entirely forgotten that it is Victorine's benefit. Unfortunately, it has been impossible for me to induce her to give me up, and, besides, we have a very crowded house. Let us bear the inevitable with dignity. Konstantin"--I saw by the gesture of loathing with which she crushed the sheet and flung it into the corner, that the wife possessed a vulnerable spot as well as the mother. Still she uttered no word of comment, and the next moment seemed to have entirely forgotten it. For the brief armistice produced by the bath had expired. The last struggle began. It lasted only a few hours, then all was over. The brave little heart had ceased to beat. The mother sat like a statue of despair beside the bed, holding the little white hand, which no current of blood would ever again warm, and gazing fixedly at the closed eyelids and livid mouth distorted by pain that would never more utter any merry words. It was as still around us as though the night was holding its breath, in order not to rouse the mother's agonized heart from its beneficent stupor. I had thrown myself into a chair in a dark corner, and felt as though I were sinking deeper and deeper into the bottomless abyss of the vast enigma of the world. From time to time I was forced to struggle with the temptation to rise, go to the poor woman, fall on my knees before her, and plead: "Keep your heart firm that it may not break. If you follow him into the grave, I shall perish too." But I conquered this selfish impulse. What mattered what happened to me! What mattered anything, since this child no longer breathed!