"I do not know. It is what we must all come to," said the doctor, sternly. He shut the door, and went back to the bedside. "That man is a veritable coward," he said, half aloud, so that Therese might have heard if she had not been busied with a vain attempt to soothe the increasing restlessness of the dying man. Those two, and old Nannon, who came in after a while of her own accord, watched together. It was at an end before morning, as the doctor had foretold. When the grey dawn broke over the old weird-looking houses, with the young sycamore-trees standing sentinel-wise before them; when it touched the beautiful stern lines of the Cathedral, and delicate carving blossomed into distinctness, and light stole into the shadowy depths, and the little lamp before the altar burned yellow, and the jackdaws woke up screaming and busy, Monsieur Moreau lay with a quiet look upon his features to which they had long been strangers, until it seemed as if the day, which was bringing youth to all the earth, had brought it back to him, and fixed it on his face for ever. CHAPTER THREE. "Les vertus se perdent dans l'interet comme les fleuves se perdent dans la mer." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mademoiselle Veuillot and M. Deshoulieres stood by the bedside silent. Noticing her a little curiously, he fancied there was more awe than grief in her countenance: it was white and troubled; but there had been enough in the night's vigil to account for that. She stood looking sadly down, her hands knitted together, the morning light full on her face. Grey eyes with long lashes, a mouth delicately lined, a round forehead, neither straight nor classical, but full of a certain sweet nobility, with waved brown hair lying softly and lightly upon it. He looked at her with a half-pitying, half-uneasy sense of guardianship. She was so girlish, so fragile, so dependent. "What am I to do with her!" thought M. Deshoulieres, despairingly. Aloud he said, so abruptly that she started,-- "You have been much tried, mademoiselle. Let me urge you to go and lie down." Old Nannon came round from the foot of the bed. Therese hesitated, half turned to the door, then back again towards the motionless figure. At such a time the first departure seems almost a cruelty to the dead. M. Deshoulieres laid his hand on her arm. "Come," he said, decidedly.