When he found himself falling in the square at Nantes, and all visible objects seemed to swim before his eyes, still he saw Agatha's beautiful pale face, and then she seemed to smile kindly on him, and to bid him hope.

As soon as his senses returned to him, he was made conscious that he was dying, and then he felt that he should die more happily if he could see once more the fair angel, who had illuminated and yet troubled the last few days of his existence.
Cathelineau had heard that Agatha had taken under her own kind care the hospital at St.Laurent, but he had not expected that she would be on the step to meet him as he was lifted out of his litter; but hers was the first face he saw on learning that his painful journey was at an end.

His wound had been pronounced to be inevitably mortal, and he had been told that he might possibly live for two or three days, but that in all probability his sufferings would not be protracted so long.

The fatal bullet had passed through his arm into his breast, had perforated his lungs, and there, within the vitals of his body, the deadly missile was still hidden.

At some moments, his agony was extreme, but at others, he was nearly free from pain; and as his life grew nearer to its close, his intervals of ease became longer, and the periods of his suffering were shortened.