Doctor Deberle answered with evasive questions.  While the other was speaking, he felt ashamed at finding himself in that room.  Why had he come up?

“I have applied two blisters,” continued the old doctor.  “I’m waiting the result.  But, of course, you’ll see her.  You will then give me your opinion.”

So saying he led him into the bedroom.  Henri entered it with a shudder creeping through his frame.  It was but faintly lighted by a lamp.  There thronged into his mind the memories of other nights, when there had been the same warm perfume, the same close, calm atmosphere, the same deepening shadows shrouding the furniture and hangings.  But there was no one now to come to him with outstretched hands as in those olden days.  Monsieur Rambaud lay back in an arm-chair exhausted, seemingly asleep.  Helene was standing in front of the bed, robed in a white dressing-gown, but did not turn her head; and her figure, in its death-like pallor, appeared to him extremely tall.  Then for a moment’s space he gazed on Jeanne.  Her weakness was so great that she could not open her eyes without fatigue.  Bathed in sweat, she lay in a stupor, her face ghastly, save that a burning flush colored each cheek.

“It’s galloping consumption,” he exclaimed at last, speaking aloud in spite of himself, and giving no sign of astonishment, as though he had long foreseen what would happen.

Helene heard him and looked at him.  She seemed to be of ice, her eyes were dry, and she was terribly calm.

“You think so, do you?” rejoined Doctor Bodin, giving an approving nod in the style of a man who had not cared to be the first to express this opinion.

He sounded the child once more.  Jeanne, her limbs quite lifeless, yielded to the examination without seemingly knowing why she was being disturbed.  A few rapid sentences were exchanged between the two physicians.  The old doctor murmured some words about amphoric breathing, and a sound such as a cracked jar might give out.  Nevertheless, he still affected some hesitation, and spoke, suggestively, of capillary bronchitis.  Doctor Deberle hastened to explain that an accidental cause had brought on the illness; doubtless it was due to a cold; however, he had already noticed several times that an anaemical tendency would produce chest diseases.  Helene stood waiting behind him.

“Listen to her breathing yourself,” said Doctor Bodin, giving way to Henri.

He leaned over the child, and seemed about to take hold of her.  She had not raised her eyelids; but lay there in self-abandonment, consumed by fever.  Her open nightdress displayed her childish breast, where as yet there were but slight signs of coming womanhood; and nothing could be more chaste or yet more harrowing than the sight of this dawning maturity on which the Angel of Death had already laid his hand.  She had displayed no aversion when the old doctor had touched her.  But the moment Henri’s fingers glanced against her body she started as if she had received a shock.  In a transport of shame she awoke from the coma in which she had been plunged, and, like a maiden in alarm, clasped her poor puny little arms over her bosom, exclaiming the while in quavering tones:  “Mamma! mamma!”