"Oh, Marie, this house will be the object of a religious care—but—"
"Thank you, Henri, oh, thank you, that thought consoles me. A last prayer: I do not wish to be separated from my son; you understand me, do you not?"
Scarcely had Marie uttered these words when a great noise was heard in the corridor.
Marguerite in terror called the doctor.
Suddenly Madame Bastien's door was thrown open violently. Frederick entered, livid as a corpse, dragging after him a piece of the bed linen, like a winding-sheet, while Marguerite was trying in vain to hold him back.
A last ray of intelligence, the filial instinct perhaps, led this child to die near his mother.
David, who was kneeling at the bedside of the young woman, rose, bewildered, as if he had seen a spectre.
"Mother! mother!" cried Frederick, in an agonising voice, throwing himself on Marie's bed, and enfolding her in his arms, as the doctor ran to them in dismay.
"Oh, come, my child, come!" murmured Marie, embracing her son in a last embrace with convulsive joy, "now it is for ever!"
These were the last words of the young mother.