She did not finish her thought, but I completed it myself;--one day, soon, she would awaken no more. And I sent the troop of children away, no longer able to endure their gaiety. * * * That same day she asked for Dilette, whom she no longer kept so much near her, not to affect or sadden her precocious sensibility unduly. The child was loth to leave her again: she looked at her insistently and too closely. “Take her away,” Raymonde begged me. I had almost to take the child away by force. When she had gone, Raymonde drew me down as if to whisper to me. “Promise me,” she said, “that you will always love her, that you will never let any one take her place in your affections.” She stopped, not daring to go on. But I read her meaning in her eyes. “Raymonde,” I answered in despair, “why do you speak to me like that? You do not know, you never will know, that my love is now equal to yours.” She bowed her head as if she had been caught in wrong-doing. “I cannot believe it, dear.” And then in a whisper: “That would be so wonderful.” She had thought to charge me with our daughter’s future, thinking of the time when I should be her sole protector, when I might perhaps be led to betray my tender memories. And in my powerlessness to convince her, I knelt before her, insisting with all my power. “You must believe me, Raymonde.” She laid her hand on my head. “Yes,” she said, “I believe you.” And she smiled ... It was the last time. * * * How can I write what follows? Her weakness increased; she no longer even left her room. Of her own accord she asked for the final sacrament. As she received it, I saw her face, so pale and white, grow bright, like a window behind which some light is shining. It was a transfiguration, in which I had the feeling that God was in her, stronger than she, so frail, whom He was going to take away. The days were growing longer, crowding night between slow twilights and hastening dawns. The morning of the twentieth of May, a little before five o’clock, she called to me. Her room, where I was watching, faced the east, and through the loosely closed shutters a ray of light entered. “Isn’t it daylight yet?” she asked me. She was oppressed. I took her hand, which was damp, in mine. There was no abatement of the fever; yet I was not immediately alarmed. “Yes, dear, don’t you see the sun?” “No,” she said. Her “no” startled me. I looked at her: her eyes were wide open, searching: she could no longer see. I pushed back the shutters, and through the open window a flood of light fell upon the bed, toward which I ran again at once. “And now?” “Now?” she repeated, making an effort, as if to fix her attention. Then she seemed to grow stronger, and replied: “Now, my dear, yes, I see.” She raised her two arms before her, and made as if to point to some spot beyond me, repeating still more distinctly: “Yes, I see.”