One of the servants had to go and bang on the laboratory door for Claes. "Madame is dying!" cried the indignant old body. "They are waiting for you to administer the last sacrament."
"I'll be there in a minute," answered Claes. When he entered the room, the Abbé de Solis and the children were kneeling round the mother's bed. His wife's face flushed at his entrance. With a loving smile, she asked: "Were you on the point of resolving nitrogen?"
"I have done it!" he answered, with triumph; "nitrogen is made up of oxygen and------" He stopped, checked by a murmur, which roused him from his dream. "What did they say?" he asked. "Are you really worse? What has happened?"
"This has happened," said the Abbé; "your wife is dying, and you have killed her."
Priest and children withdrew.
"What does he mean?" asked Claes.
"Dearest," she answered, "your love was my life; I could not live without it."
He took her hand, and kissed it.
"When have I not loved you?" he asked.
She refused to utter a reproach. For her children's sake she told the narrative of his six years' search for the Absolute, which had destroyed her life and swallowed up two million francs, making him see the horror of their desolation. "Have pity, have pity," she cried, "on our children!"