"Yes," the sister continued; "but now that she is going to see you, sir, and does not see her child, what are we to tell her?"
He remained thoughtful for a moment.
"God will inspire us," he said.
"Still, it is impossible to tell a falsehood," the sister murmured in a low voice.
It was now bright day in the room, and it lit up M. Madeleine's face. The sister raised her eyes by chance.
"Good gracious, sir!" she exclaimed; "what can have happened to you? Your hair is quite white."
"What!" he said.
Sister Simplice had no mirror, but she took from a drawer a small looking-glass which the infirmary doctor employed to make sure that a patient was dead. M. Madeleine took this glass, looked at his hair, and said, "So it is." He said it carelessly and as if thinking of something else, and the sister felt chilled by some unknown terror of which she caught a glimpse in all this. He asked,—
"Can I see her?"
"Will you not recover her child for her, sir?" the sister said, hardly daring to ask the question.