A faint smile touched the corners of her lips. "Pauvre Bombiste!" she added. "It is one who does not know his own heart!" And this again is unknowable mystery,--the gentle word of _the_ woman for the man! "He is mowing on the fortifs this week," went on Marcelle, wistfully echoing her lover's slang, "and La Trompette is with him. I saw them but to-day, from the porte de Clichy. So, since they are together, for me it is finished. I have come back to the Butte, Papa Labesse--come back to die. For now there is none to receive me, save Paris. She will take me, thou knowest, she who has made me like herself." That was all. There was no word, now at the end, of Bombiste Fremier, except that he did not know his own heart,--no word of the days without food, the long nights of following him from wineshop to wineshop, perhaps to be refused at last the wretched shelter of his little room; no word of curses, blows, and insults worse than either. When she was silent again Papa Labesse drew her gently away from the brink of the bluff. "My pigeon," he said, "there is one to receive thee. Thou wilt come to the little shop--pas?--and rest there upon my bed. For I have no need of sleep, I. And in the morning thou wilt be strong again, and well. Come, my pigeon!" And silently, hand in hand, they retraced the familiar way, down the long, curving incline of the rue Lepic, and the door of the little joiner's shop closed behind them. Marcelle died at daybreak, going out softly like a lamp that dims and dims, and then flares once into brilliance before all is dark. Papa Labesse was on his knees beside the narrow bed, when she woke from the stupor into which she had fallen, and raised herself upright, her face shining with a great light. The old man, himself unconscious that the end had come, lifted his eyes eagerly to hers. "My little white pigeon," he said tremulously, "thou findest thyself better, is it not so?" But the knowledge of him had passed utterly from Marcelle. For a moment she was silent, looking at the wall of the tiny room, as she had looked in the old days at the great city, spread like a map at the foot of the Butte Montmartre. Then she sank back upon the pillow and crossed her hands upon her breast. "Paris!" she said. "Paris, toi qui chantes de l'amour!" And then, very faintly, "Bombi!" It was her pet name for Fremier, but Papa Labesse did not understand.