raising her arms to heaven.  She did not know where Monsieur might be, Monsieur never left any address.  At last, feeling frightened herself, she made up her mind to hasten to the abode of the two women, aunt and niece, with whom Beauchene spent the greater part of his time.  She knew their address perfectly well, as her mistress had even sent her thither in pressing emergencies.  But she learnt that the ladies had gone with Monsieur to Nice for a holiday; whereupon, not desiring to return without some member of the family, she was seized on her way back with the fine idea of calling on Monsieur’s sister, the Baroness de Lowicz, whom she brought, almost by force, in her cab.

It was in vain that Boutan attempted treatment.  When Constance opened her eyes again, she looked at him fixedly, recognized him, no doubt, and then lowered her eyelids.  And from that moment she obstinately refused to reply to any question that was put to her.  She must have heard and have known that people were there, trying to succor her.  But she would have none of their succor, she was stubbornly intent on dying, on giving no further sign of life.  Neither did she raise her eyelids, nor did her lips part again.  It was as if she had already quitted the world amid the mute agony of her defeat.

That evening Seraphine’s manner was extremely strange.  She reeked of ether, for she drank ether now.  When she heard of the two-fold “accident,” the death of Morange and that of Alexandre, which had brought on Constance’s cardiacal attack, she simply gave an insane grin, a kind of involuntary snigger, and stammered:  “Ah! that’s funny.”

Though she removed neither her hat nor her gloves, she installed herself in an armchair, where she sat waiting, with her eyes wide open and staring straight before her—­those brown eyes flecked with gold, whose living light was all that she had retained of her massacred beauty.  At sixty-two she looked like a centenarian; her bold, insolent face was ravined, as it were, by her stormy life, and the glow of her sun-like hair had been extinguished by a shower of ashes.  And time went on, midnight approached, and she was still there, near that death-bed of which she seemed to be ignorant, in that quivering chamber where she forgot herself, similar to a mere thing, apparently no longer even knowing why she had been brought thither.

Mathieu and Boutan had been unwilling to retire.  Since Monsieur was at Nice in the company of those ladies, the aunt and the niece, they decided to spend the night there in order that Constance might not be left alone with the old servant.  And towards midnight, while they were chatting together in undertones, they were suddenly stupefied at hearing Seraphine raise her voice, after preserving silence for three hours.

“He is dead, you know,” said she.

Who was dead?  At last they understood that she referred to Dr. Gaude.  The celebrated surgeon, had, indeed, been found in his consulting-room struck down by sudden death, the cause of which was not clearly known.  In fact, the strangest, the most horrible and tragical stories were current on the subject.  According to one of them a patient had wreaked vengeance on the doctor; and Mathieu, full of emotion, recalled that one day, long ago, Seraphine herself had suggested that all Gaude’s unhappy patients ought to band themselves together and put an end to him.