Be motherly, be sisterly, fear nought. Go, watch him
by night; you may sleep at his feet and he will not stir. Yet he lives,
and shall live--may live to forget you, who knows? But for all that, be
gentle and watchful; be womanlike, we ask no more; and God reward you!
Even while it was taking all the two women's strength to hold the door
against Death, the sick man himself laid a grief upon them.
"Mother," he said to Madame John, quite a master of French in his
delirium, "dear mother, fear not; trust your boy; fear nothing. I will
not marry 'Tite Poulette; I cannot. She is fair, dear mother, but ah!
she is not--don't you know, mother? don't you know? The race! the race!
Don't you know that she is jet black. Isn't it?"
The poor nurse nodded "Yes," and gave a sleeping draught; but before the
patient quite slept he started once and stared.
"Take her away,"--waving his hand--"take your beauty away. She is jet
white. Who could take a jet white wife? O, no, no, no, no!"
Next morning his brain was right.
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