When I arrived they had practically been three days without anything to eat except green leaves and grass, such as I saw the child chewing.

In another seventy hours doubtless every one of them would have been dead.
Well, they recovered rapidly enough, for those who had survived its ravages were evidently now impervious to fever.

Who can tell the joy that I experienced as I watched Marie returning from the very brink of the grave to a state of full and lovely womanhood?
After all, we were not so far away from the primitive conditions of humanity, when the first duty of man was to feed his women and his children, and I think that something of that instinct remains with us.

At least, I know I never experienced a greater pleasure than I did, when the woman I loved, the poor, starving woman, ate and ate of the food which _I_ was able to give her--she who for weeks had existed upon locusts and herbs.
For the first few days we did not talk much except of the immediate necessities of the hour, which occupied all our thoughts.

Afterwards, when Marais and his daughter were strong enough to bear it, we had some conversation.