“Well, my darling, have you nothing to say to them?”

Jeanne gazed at them, her breathing growing yet more oppressed.  And still she said not a word, but suddenly burst into tears.  Zephyrin and Rosalie had at once to quit the room.

“I beg pardon—­mademoiselle and every one—­” stammered the little soldier, as he went away in bewilderment.

This was one of Jeanne’s last whims.  She lapsed into a dull stupor, from which nothing could rouse her.  She lay there in utter loneliness, unconscious even of her mother’s presence.  When Helene hung over the bed seeking her eyes, the child preserved a stolid expression, as though only the shadow of the curtain had passed before her.  Her lips were dumb; she showed the gloomy resignation of the outcast who knows that she is dying.  Sometimes she would long remain with her eyelids half closed, and nobody could divine what stubborn thought was thus absorbing her.  Nothing now had any existence for her save her big doll, which lay beside her.  They had given it to her one night to divert her during her insufferable anguish, and she refused to give it back, defending it with fierce gestures the moment they attempted to take it from her.  With its pasteboard head resting on the bolster, the doll was stretched out like an invalid, covered up to the shoulders by the counterpane.  There was little doubt the child was nursing it, for her burning hands would, from time to time, feel its disjointed limbs of flesh-tinted leather, whence all the sawdust had exuded.  For hours her eyes would never stray from those enamel ones which were always fixed, or from those white teeth wreathed in an everlasting smile.  She would suddenly grow affectionate, clasp the doll’s hands against her bosom and press her cheek against its little head of hair, the caressing contact of which seemed to give her some relief.  Thus she sought comfort in her affection for her big doll, always assuring herself of its presence when she awoke from a doze, seeing nothing else, chatting with it, and at times summoning to her face the shadow of a smile, as though she had heard it whispering something in her ear.

The third week was dragging to an end.  One morning the old doctor came and remained.  Helene understood him:  her child would not live through the day.  Since the previous evening she had been in a stupor that deprived her of the consciousness even of her own actions.  There was no longer any struggle with death; it was but a question of hours.  As the dying child was consumed by an awful thirst, the doctor had merely recommended that she should be given some opiate beverage, which would render her passing less painful; and the relinquishing of all attempts at cure reduced Helene to a state of imbecility.  So long as the medicines had littered the night-table she still had entertained hopes of a miraculous recovery.  But now bottles and boxes had vanished, and her last trust was gone.  One instinct only inspired her now—­to be near Jeanne, never leave her, gaze at her unceasingly.  The doctor, wishing to distract her attention from the terrible sight, strove, by assigning some little duties to her, to keep her at a distance.  But she ever and ever returned, drawn to the bedside by the physical craving to see.  She waited, standing erect, her arms hanging beside her, and her face swollen by despair.