"Les vertus se perdent dans l'interet comme les fleuves se perdent
dans la mer."
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Mademoiselle Veuillot and M. Deshoulieres stood by the bedside silent.
Noticing her a little curiously, he fancied there was more awe than
grief in her countenance: it was white and troubled; but there had been
enough in the night's vigil to account for that. She stood looking
sadly down, her hands knitted together, the morning light full on her
face. Grey eyes with long lashes, a mouth delicately lined, a round
forehead, neither straight nor classical, but full of a certain sweet
nobility, with waved brown hair lying softly and lightly upon it. He
looked at her with a half-pitying, half-uneasy sense of guardianship.
She was so girlish, so fragile, so dependent. "What am I to do with
her!" thought M. Deshoulieres, despairingly.