Wait a few minutes." Saniel took his instruments and followed the laborer, who, on the way, explained his wife's condition.
"Where are we going ?" Saniel asked, interrupting these explanations.
"Rue de la Corderie." It was behind the Saint Honore' market, on the sixth floor, under the roof, in a room that was perfectly clean, in spite of its poverty.

As soon as Saniel entered the nurse came forward, and in a few words told him the woman's trouble.
"Is the child living ?" "Yes." "That is well; let us see." He approached the bed and made a careful examination of the patient, who kept repeating: "I am going to die.

Save me, doctor!" "Certainly, we shall save you," he said, very softly.

"I promise you." He turned away from the bed and said to the nurse: "The only way to save the mother is to kill the child." The operation was long, difficult, and painful, and after it was over Saniel remained a long time with the patient.

When he reached the street a neighboring clock struck five, and the market-place had already begun to show signs of life.
But in the streets was still the silence and solitude of night, and Saniel began to reflect on what had occurred during the last few hours.
Thus, he had not hesitated to kill this child, who had, perhaps, sixty or seventy years of happy life before it, and he hesitated at the death of Caffie, to whom remained only a miserable existence of a few weeks.
The interests of a poor, weak, stunted woman had decided him; his, those of humanity, left him perplexed, irresolute, weak, and cowardly.