“My child!” cried Helene.  “My God! my God! she is dying.”

Setting down the lamp, Helene touched her daughter with trembling hands.  The throbbing of the pulse and the heart’s action seemed to have died away.  The child’s puny arms and legs were stretched out convulsively, and the mother grew frantic at the sight.

“My child is dying!  Help, help!” she stammered.  “My child! my child!”

She wandered back to her room, brushing against the furniture, and unconscious of her movements; then, distracted, she again returned to the little bed, throwing herself on her knees, and ever appealing for help.  She took Jeanne in her arms, rained kisses on her hair, and stroked her little body, begging her to answer, and seeking one word —­only one word—­from her silent lips.  Where was the pain?  Would she have some of the cooling drink she had liked the other day?  Perhaps the fresh air would revive her?  So she rattled on, bent on making the child speak.

“Speak to me, Jeanne! speak to me, I entreat you!”

Oh, God! and not to know what to do in this sudden terror born of the night!  There was no light even.  Then her ideas grew confused, though her supplications to the child continued—­at one moment she was beseeching, at another answering in her own person.  Thus, the pain gripped her in the stomach; no, no, it must be in the breast.  It was nothing at all; she need merely keep quiet.  Then Helene tried to collect her scattered senses; but as she felt her daughter stark and stiff in her embrace, her heart sickened unto death.  She tried to reason with herself, and to resist the yearning to scream.  But all at once, despite herself, her cry rang out

“Rosalie, Rosalie! my child is dying.  Quick, hurry for the doctor.”

Screaming out these words, she ran through dining-room and kitchen to a room in the rear, where the maid started up from sleep, giving vent to her surprise.  Helene speeded back again.  Clad only in her night-dress she moved about, seemingly not feeling the icy cold of the February night.  Pah! this maid would loiter, and her child would die!  Back again she hurried through the kitchen to the bedroom before a minute had elapsed.  Violently, and in the dark, she slipped on a petticoat, and threw a shawl over her shoulders.  The furniture in her way was overturned; the room so still and silent was filled with the echoes of her despair.  Then leaving the doors open, she rushed down three flights of stairs in her slippers, consumed with the thought that she alone could bring back a doctor.

After the house-porter had opened the door Helene found herself upon the pavement, with a ringing in her ears and her mind distracted.  However, she quickly ran down the Rue Vineuse and pulled the door-bell of Doctor Bodin, who had already tended Jeanne; but a servant—­after an interval which seemed an eternity—­informed her that the doctor was attending a woman in childbed.  Helene remained