As the blind man made a motion to relinquish her hand, Odette said: "_Au revoir_, messieurs"; and left them. The blind man remained motionless, either because he could not think it possible that she should go, or because he waited for his friend, who hesitated to urge him to leave the place. * * * Odette did not go up to Clotilde, even at the risk of permitting her lack of protestation to be accepted as acquiescence. She felt herself incapable of talking with any one whose heart was not overflowing. She did not disdain the sight of her flowers, her preoccupation with personal pleasures; she would despise nothing, these were tastes which inspired her rather with pity. Toward those who have greatly suffered it was not pity that she felt, but _attraction_; an irresistible attraction. * * * She was soon joined by one who greeted her. It was La Villaumer, returning from a visit to a sick man in the Rue Bizet. He turned toward the two men who were going away and asked Odette: "Then it is true? They told me----" "Only one single thing is true," said Odette, "and that is that they told you." "There is only one single thing true," replied La Villaumer, "and that is that you feel as imperative a need to do good, as most poor mortals of good being done to them. If I had not seen--I should say to you, as others will say to you: 'My friend, take care, keep yourself in hand!' But I have just seen the face of this man who is deprived of light, and who perhaps feels the lack of you more than of the beauty of the light, and I tremble-- It seems to me that I see you, my poor dear friend, reaching the last stage of an evolution which I have watched as if it had been my own. Many will look upon this acme of your self-sacrifice as an immolation. But I recall to mind the words that I have so often spoken to myself: 'You no longer Count!' The individual is dead-- Provisionally, but for a time which we cannot estimate, the individual is dead-- In fact, you yourself have perceived that you no longer have any rights, not even the right to mourn your unending grief. The moment has come to mourn more largely, more grandly, with the only grief that can save a soul like yours. The only hope of a resurrection lies in giving oneself to the common need, and losing oneself in it with love."