When Marie regained consciousness she realised that her end was approaching, and asked to see her son immediately. The embarrassment of Marguerite, her pallor and tears, her look of despair, and the excuses and evasions she made to explain the absence of Frederick in that solemn moment were a revelation to the young mother. She felt, so to speak, that, like herself, her son was about to die; then she asked to see David. Marguerite ushered the preceptor into the room and left him alone with Madame Bastien, whose angelic features already bore the impress of death. With her cold white hand she made a sign to David to sit down at her bedside and said to him: "How is my son?" "Madame--" "He is not in his chamber; they are hiding him from me." "Do not think--" "I understand all; he is in a desperate state I know, but as my end is near, too, I wish to say farewell to him, Henri." For the first and the last time, alas! Marie called David by his baptismal name. "Farewell!" repeated he, with a heartrending sob "you wish to say farewell!" "But I cannot die without telling you how much I have loved you. You knew it, did you not, my friend?" "And you say that you are going to die! No, no! Marie, the power of my love will give new life to you!" cried David, under a sort of aberration of mind. "Die! Oh, why will you die? We love each other so much." "Yes, our love is great, my friend, and for me it began from the day you restored the life of my son's soul." "Oh, woe! woe!" "No, Henri, my death is not a woe for us. It seems to me, you understand, that, in the moment of leaving this life, my soul, freed from terrestrial ties, can read the future. Henri, do you know what would have been our fate?" "You ask me to tell you that, when this morning our plans were so--" "Listen to me, my friend; there are profound mysteries of maternal love which, perhaps, are never unveiled but in supreme moments. As long as I felt myself free, the future appeared radiant to me, as it did to you, Henri, and perhaps for a few months, you and my son and myself would have mingled our lives in the same bliss." "Oh, that dream! that dream!" "The dream was beautiful, Henri; perhaps the awakening would have been cruel." "What do you mean?" "You know how much my son loves me. You know that all passionate affection has its jealousy; sooner or later, he would have been jealous of my love for you, Henri." "He, he jealous of me?" "You can believe a mother's heart; I am not mistaken." "Alas, you only wish to make my sorrow less grievous; brave and generous to the last!" "Say I am a mother to the last. Listen to me still, Henri. In uniting myself to you, I would have lost my name, that humble name that my son wanted above everything to make illustrious, because that name was mine, because everything in the poor child had reference to me."