He might be killed, and if the possibility of an eternal separation had not moved the injured woman, what prayer would move her?
He saw her in his thoughts--her who at that moment, with blinds drawn, all lights subdued, endured in the semi-darkness that suffering which curses but does not pardon.

Ah, but that sight was painful to him! And, in order that she might at least know how he felt, he took their son in his arms, and, pressing him to his breast, said: "If you see your mother before I do, you will tell her that we spent a very lonesome evening without her, will you not ?" "Why, what ails you ?" exclaimed the child.

"You have wet my cheeks with tears--you are sweeping!" "You will tell her that, too, promise me," replied the father, "so that she will take good care of herself, seeing how we love her." "But," said the little boy, "she was not ill when we walked together after breakfast.

She was so gay." "I think, too, it will be nothing serious," replied Gorka.

He was obliged to dismiss his son and to go out.