Her Last Stake, Chapters I-V [pp. 815-839]

HER LAST STAKE.
faintly unintelligible sentences in French and English from
time to time. "There will be no change yet," pronounced the
doctor at his evening visit, "so make yourself a bed"on the
sofa and get some rest; you may need it later on." And so
night fell upon the silent room.
CHAPTER II.
The days passed on and still the change, for life or death,
delayed its coming. Patient Sister Gabrielle still watched be side her unconscious charge, sometimes slipping outside the
heavy curtain of that carbolized sheet which shut them off-she
and this stranger together-from the world without, to breathe
for a few moments the purer air of the corridor and its open
window looking towards the mountains, until the pert chamber maid who waited on them whispered to her that "M. le Proprietaire requested that la sceur would not show herself outside
the room, lest other visitors should suspect illness there." So
that even that faint relaxation was taken from her. One morning he sent word to her to come to his bureau; and she went
wondering and somewhat anxious, for she knew that he received his daily report from the doctor, and asked herself wherein she could supplement it.
"Ban jour, ma sceur; how goes your patient? The same?
No worse, no better? Ah! it is trying, this." He spoke in
halting yet not altogether bad English, knowing that the nun's
command of French was but slight. "Look here, I have some
word to say to you. Have you found, among the lady's possessions, any guch things as letters, papers, hein?"
"I have not looked, monsieur," replied Sister Gabrielle,
with some indignation.
"But it would be well that you should do so," he returned.
"Look here: we must find out her friends-we must know more."
"Do you know nothing of them, then?" questioned the sister,
opening her mild blue eyes a little wider as this new and startling fact presented itself.
"Well, it is this. Of course when she first became ill-before you came-I examined her things, and took away all
money, and jewelry, and any letters I could find. That I was
bound to do, naturally, in my own interest," he added, seeing
that the nun looked somewhat startled at his announcement;
"I was obliged to see that there was some money forthcoming
for the expenses."
820
[Mar.,