Illnesses like Armand's have one fortunate thing about them: they either
kill outright or are very soon overcome. A fortnight after the events
which I have just related Armand was convalescent, and we had already
become great friends. During the whole course of his illness I had
hardly left his side.

Spring was profuse in its flowers, its leaves, its birds, its songs; and
my friend's window opened gaily upon his garden, from which a reviving
breath of health seemed to come to him. The doctor had allowed him to
get up, and we often sat talking at the open window, at the hour when
the sun is at its height, from twelve to two. I was careful not to refer
to Marguerite, fearing lest the name should awaken sad recollections
hidden under the apparent calm of the invalid; but Armand, on the
contrary, seemed to delight in speaking of her, not as formerly, with
tears in his eyes, but with a sweet smile which reassured me as to the
state of his mind.

I had noticed that ever since his last visit to the cemetery, and the
sight which had brought on so violent a crisis, sorrow seemed to have
been overcome by sickness, and Marguerite's death no longer appeared to
him under its former aspect. A kind of consolation had sprung from the
certainty of which he was now fully persuaded, and in order to banish
the sombre picture which often presented itself to him, he returned
upon the happy recollections of his liaison with Marguerite, and seemed
resolved to think of nothing else.