She stood with her back to the bath-room door, panting, and white, and
anguished, and her ears strained to the terrible thing inside the place
behind her.

The men understood, and came towards her. "Stand back," she said. "You
shall not have him. You shall not have him. Ah, don't you hear? He is
dying--O God, O God!" she cried, with tearless eyes and upturned face--
"Ah, let it be soon! Ah, let him die soon!"

The men stood abashed before her agony. Behind the little door where
she stood there was a muffled groaning. She trembled, but her arms were
spread out before the door as though on a cross, and her lips kept
murmuring: "O God, let him die! Let him die! Oh spare him agony!"

Suddenly she stood still and listened-listened, with staring eyes that
saw nothing. In the room men shrank back, for they knew that death was
behind the little door, and that they were in the presence of a sorrow
greater than death.

Suddenly she turned upon them with a gesture of piteous triumph and said:

"You cannot have him now."

Then she swayed and fell forward to the floor as the Cure and George
Fournel entered the room. The Cure hastened to her side and lifted up
her head.

George Fournel pushed the men back who would have entered the bath-room,
and himself, bursting the door open, entered. Louis lay dead upon the