Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/269

 Marie felt ill in the night, she would call to him, and he would fetch Marthe immediately.

Also, Marthe promised to call at the house of M. le Curé on her way home. He would be out late, since he had started only an hour ago to take the Host to old Goupé, who lay dying four kilometres away; but she would leave a message, and certainly, when he returned, however late, he would come round. It was nine o'clock before Marthe would leave, and even then she stopped reluctantly at the door, with a last look at the thin figure propped up on her pillows. "Let me stay, Jeanne-Marie," she said; "you are so pale, and yet your eyes burn. I do not like to think of the long night and you sitting here."

"It is easier than when I lie down, which brings the breathlessness. Do not worry yourself, Marthe, I shall sleep perhaps, and if I need anything, I have but to call to Jean below. Good-night, and thank you, Marthe."

The little house was very quiet. Jean had been asleep on his chair this hour past, and not a sound came from the slumbering village. There was no blind to the window of the bedroom, and Jeanne-Marie watched the moon, as it escaped slowly from the unwilling clouds, and threw its light on to the foot of the narrow bed.

For a long while she lay there, without moving, while through all her troubled, confused thoughts ran like an under-current the dull pain that wrenched at her heart. It seemed to take the coherency from her thinking, and to be the one unquiet factor in the calm that had come over her. She was surprised, herself, at this strange fatigue that had swept away even her suffering. She thought of little Henri and his illness without a pang. He seemed like some far-off person she had read about, or heard of, long ago.