occurred to the merciless questioner to profit by the gathering darkness.
By a few solemn words he aroused the religious feelings of the sufferer,
terrified him by speaking of the punishments of another life and the
flames of hell, until to the delirious fancy of the sick man he took the
form of a judge who could either deliver him to eternal damnation or open
the gates of heaven to him. At length, overwhelmed by a voice which
resounded in his ear like that of a minister of God, the dying man laid
bare his inmost soul before his tormentor, and made his last confession
to him.

Yet a few moments, and the executioner--he deserves no other name--hangs
over his victim, opens his tunic, seizes some papers and a few coins,
half draws his dagger, but thinks better of it; then, contemptuously
spurning the victim, as the other surgeon had done--

"I might kill you," he says, "but it would be a useless murder; it would
only be hastening your last Sigh by an hour or two, and advancing my
claims to your inheritance by the same space of time."

And he adds mockingly:--

"Farewell, my brother!"

The wounded soldier utters a feeble groan; the adventurer leaves the
room.

Four months later, a woman sat at the door of a house at one end of the
village of Artigues, near Rieux, and played with a child about nine or
ten years of age. Still young, she had the brown complexion of Southern
women, and her beautiful black hair fell in curls about her face. Her