But they left him lying on the floor, bathed in blood." And Madame Doulce said to Ellen Midi: "It has often been my fate to stand beside a deathbed.

I always go down on my knees and pray.

I at once feel myself invaded by a heavenly serenity." "You are indeed fortunate!" replied Ellen Midi.
At the end of the Rue Campagne-Premiere, on the wide grey boulevards, they became conscious of the length of the road which they had covered, and the melancholy nature of the journey.

They felt that while following the coffin they had crossed the confines of life, and were already in the country of the dead.

On their right stretched the yards of the marble-workers, the florists' shops which supplied wreaths for funerals, displays of potted flowers, and the economical furniture of tombs, zinc flower-stands, wreaths of immortelles in cement, and guardian angels in plaster.