Do you feel no regret in seeing her? Would you also like
her to be dead? would you have advised her not to drink the water?"
The Commander could not answer; but his eyes no longer strayed from
Marie's young face, on which one read such great happiness at having
resuscitated, such vast hopes in countless morrows; and tears appeared in
those fixed eyes of his, gathered under their lids, and rolled down his
cheeks, which were already cold. He was certainly weeping for her; he
must have been thinking of that other miracle which he had wished
her--that if she should be cured, she might be happy. It was the
tenderness of an old man, who knows the miseries of this world, stirred
to pity by the thought of all the sorrows which awaited this young
creature. Ah! poor woman, how many times; perhaps, might she regret that
she had not died in her twentieth year!
Then the Commander's eyes grew very dim, as though those last pitiful
tears had dissolved them. It was the end; coma was coming; the mind was
departing with the breath. He slightly turned, and died.
Doctor Chassaigne at once drew Marie aside. "The train's starting," he
said; "make haste, make haste!"
Indeed, the loud ringing of a bell was clearly resounding above the
growing tumult of the crowd. And the doctor, having requested two bearers
to watch the body, which would be removed later on when the train had
gone, desired to accompany his friends to their carriage.
They hastened their steps.
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