"'Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine--thine own sweet smile I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me; Faithful remembrances of one so dear, O welcome guest, though unexpected here! My mother! When I learnt that thou wast dead, Say wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unfelt, a kiss, Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss.'" She showed the lock of hair to Riche and Marcel, but they only smiled and shook their heads when she told them that her mother had cut it off from her own head only the night before. "No, no, mademoiselle, you can't make us believe that your mother really appeared to you in the flesh and cut off a lock of her hair with a pair of scissors, and handed it to you." "But I assure you, doctor, it is perfectly true." "The vigil has been too much for Renée, poor child," said Riche to Villebois as they were discussing the vision. "Her reason has broken down under the strain." "Yes," said Villebois, "I agree that we must send her away for a change somewhere, or she will have brain fever, or lose her reason altogether." "I am afraid that those visions of her mother show that she has lost her senses already," said Riche. "But how do you account for the lock of hair?" said Villebois. "Why it's Renée's own hair of course, or else that of her maid." "Well it can't be that of her maid, because that is raven black." "I don't believe the tale for a moment," said Riche with a smile of contempt for such an ignorant superstition. "Well look at the two side by side as I have done, and you will change your opinion. They are as different as day from night. Renée's hair has a brownish colour, whereas her mother's is of a light golden colour." He showed them both side by side to Riche but he merely shrugged his shoulders. He had seen so many wonderful things lately that he had ceased to scoff, but felt it prudent to keep silent. At the end of the week Delapine's temperature had risen to normal (98.4° F.) and he had so far recovered that he was able to walk downstairs and sit in the study. Renée was in constant attendance. No hospital nurse could have looked after him better, and certainly no one in the world could have replaced her in Delapine's eyes. "Oh! Villebois, mon ami," he would say as he lay on the sofa a few days later, "I have had a most marvellous sleep, and a wonderful recovery, but you cannot imagine in your wildest dreams what wonderful adventures and experiences I have had."