Lights could still be seen streaming through the dining-room windows of Helene’s lodging.  Walking round, he noted that the kitchen was also brilliantly lighted up.  And at this sight he stopped short in astonishment, which slowly developed into uneasiness.  Shadows traversed the blinds; there seemed to be considerable bustle and stir up there.  Perhaps Monsieur Rambaud had stayed to dine?  But the worthy man never left later than ten o’clock.  He, Henri, dared not go up; for what would he say should Rosalie open the door?  At last, as it was nearing midnight, mad with impatience and throwing prudence to the winds, he rang the bell, and walked swiftly past the porter’s room without giving his name.  At the top of the stairs Rosalie received him.

“It’s you, sir!  Come in.  I will go and announce you.  Madame must be expecting you.”

She gave no sign of surprise on seeing him at this hour.  As he entered the dining-room without uttering a word, she resumed distractedly:  “Oh! mademoiselle is very ill, sir.  What a night!  My legs are sinking under me!” Thereupon she left the room, and the doctor mechanically took a seat.  He was oblivious of the fact that he was a medical man.  Pacing along the quay he had conjured up a vision of a very different reception.  And now he was there, as though he were paying a visit, waiting with his hat on his knees.  A grievous coughing in the next room alone broke upon the intense silence.

At last Rosalie made her appearance once more, and hurrying across the dining-room with a basin in her hand, merely remarked:  “Madame says you are not to go in.”

He sat on, powerless to depart.  Was their meeting to be postponed till another day, then?  He was dazed, as though such a thing had seemed to him impossible.  Then the thought came to him that poor Jeanne had very bad health; children only brought on sorrow and vexation.  The door, however, opened once more, and Doctor Bodin entered, with a thousand apologies falling from his lips.  For some time he chattered away:  he had been sent for, but he would always be exceedingly pleased to enter into consultation with his renowned fellow-practitioner.

“Oh! no doubt, no doubt,” stammered Doctor Deberle, whose ears were buzzing.

The elder man, his mind set at rest with regard to all questions of professional etiquette, then began to affect a puzzled manner, and expressed his doubts of the meaning of the symptoms.  He spoke in a whisper, and described them in technical phraseology, frequently pausing and winking significantly.  There was coughing without expectoration, very pronounced weakness, and intense fever.  Perhaps it might prove a case of typhoid fever.  But in the meantime he gave no decided opinion, as the anaemic nervous affection, for which the patient had been treated so long, made him fear unforeseen complications.

“What do you think?” he asked, after delivering himself of each remark.