'Is it M. le Maire?' he said; 'à la bonne heure! I have a complaint to
make of the nurses for the night. They have gone out to amuse
themselves; they take no notice of poor sick people. They have known for
a week that I could not sleep; but neither have they given me a sleeping
draught, nor endeavoured to distract me with cheerful conversation. And
to-day, look you, M. le Maire, not one of the sisters has come near me!'

'Have you suffered, my poor fellow?' I said; but he would not go so far
as this.

'I don't want to make complaints, M. le Maire; but the sisters do not
come themselves as they used to do. One does not care to have a strange
nurse, when one knows that if the sisters did their duty--But if it does
not occur any more I do not wish it to be thought that I am the one to
complain.'

'Do not fear, mon ami,' I said. 'I will say to the Reverend Mother that
you have been left too long alone.'

'And listen, M. le Maire,' cried the man; 'those bells, will they never
be done? My head aches with the din they make. How can one go to sleep
with all that riot in one's ears?'

We looked at each other, we could not but smile. So that which is joy
and deliverance to one is vexation to another. As we went out again into
the street the lingering music of the bells died out, and (for the first
time for all these terrible days and nights) the great clock struck the
hour. And as the clock struck, the last cloud rose like a mist and
disappeared in flying vapours, and the full sunshine of noon burst on
Semur.