“Do you intend to suggest any course of action to the young lady?” he asked.
He received no answer. Just then the doctor was not thinking about the young lady. He strode hastily up the stairs, through an atmosphere yet heavy and sweet with its lingering cloud of incense, and into the room where M. Moreau was doing battle with the last enemy he would have to contend with. A girl stood by the side of the bed, looking down on the dread struggle with pitiful eyes. Except now and then moistening the poor parched lips or smoothing the tumbled pillow, there was nothing for her to do but watch: all apparent consciousness was at an end; no sign of recognition greeted the doctor. He also stood watching for a few minutes before he turned to the girl.
“How long is it since this change came on, mademoiselle?”
“About a quarter of an hour. I think he hardly heard Monsieur le Curé’s last words,” she added, under her breath. Her voice trembled: that quarter of an hour had seemed very terrible to poor Thérèse. The sunlight streamed in at the window, but, in spite of it, the room looked dark and funereal: there was a heavy paper on the walls; stiff, solid furniture; in one corner a huge black stove reared itself grimly towards the ceiling. The women of the house would have stayed with her, but the old man was impatient of their presence: almost his last word had been a peremptory “Go!” still fierce enough to frighten them. It was not likely that the consciousness of any person’s presence would return, as M. Deshoulières quickly perceived. He took the little notary to the door, and told him so.
“There is no possible use in your waiting, M. Ignace,” he said. “I was a fool, and must abide by the consequences. Nothing will ever be changed now. What is the matter?—are you ill?” he went on, noticing his pale face.
“For the moment,—only for the moment, M. Deshoulières,” answered the little man, with a quavering voice. “It is so horrible, you know, to see him like that. Will—will it be soon?”
“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 Thérèse 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.