M. Garon knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again more loudly,
and still no answer. He opened the door and entered into a clean, warm
living-room, so hot that the heat came to him in waves, buffeting his
face. Dining, sitting, and drawing-room, it was also a sort of winter
kitchen; and side by side with relics of Kilquhanity's soldier-life were
clean, bright tins, black saucepans, strings of dried fruit, and well-
cured hams. Certainly the place had the air of home; it spoke for the
absent termagant.

M. Garon looked round and saw a half-opened door, through which presently
came a voice speaking in a laboured whisper. The Avocat knocked gently
at the door. "May I come in, Sergeant?" he asked, and entered. There
was no light in the room, but the fire in the kitchen stove threw a glow
over the bed where the sick man lay. The big hands of the soldier moved
restlessly on the quilt.

"Aw, it's the koind av ye!" said Kilquhanity, with difficulty, out of
the half shadows.

The Avocat took one burning hand in both of his, held it for a moment,
and pressed it two or three times. He did not know what to say.

"We must have a light," said he at last, and taking a candle from the
shelf he lighted it at the stove and came into the bedroom again. This
time he was startled. Even in this short illness, Kilquhanity's flesh
had dropped away from him, leaving him but a bundle of bones, on which
the skin quivered with fever. Every word the sick man tried to speak cut
his chest like a knife, and his eyes half started from his head with the
agony of it. The Avocat's heart sank within him, for he saw that a life