with the smallest details of that terrible minute:
"If mother is still asleep," she thought, "I will blow on her forehead to wake her."
She listened at the door. Not a sound. She laughed roguishly. Then, slowly, cautiously, she opened the door. Mme. Armand lay stretched on the bed. Gilberte went up to her. For some indefinable reason, she forgot her intended joke and simply kissed her mother on the forehead.
A cry escaped her lips. Terror-stricken, she flung herself upon her mother, caught her desperately in her arms and fell fainting beside the bed.
Mme. Armand was dead.
* * *
A room in which she sobs for hours on end, heedless of all things, huddled in a little chair, or on her knees before a white-curtained bed; people who come and go; a doctor who certifies the cause of death; aneurism of the heart, beyond a doubt; the lady of the
