The doctor did not reply, but watched the paroxysm attentively.

“Step into the alcove,” he at last exclaimed.  “Hold her hands to prevent her from tearing herself.  There now, gently, quietly!  Don’t make yourself uneasy.  The fit must be allowed to run its course.”

They both bent over the bed, supporting and holding Jeanne, whose limbs shot out with sudden jerks.  The doctor had buttoned up his coat to hide his bare neck, and Helene’s shoulders had till now been enveloped in her shawl; but Jeanne in her struggles dragged a corner of the shawl away, and unbuttoned the top of the coat.  Still they did not notice it; they never even looked at one another.

[Illustration:  Jeanne’s Illness]

At last the convulsion ceased, and the little one then appeared to sink into deep prostration.  Doctor Deberle was evidently ill at ease, though he had assured the mother that there was no danger.  He kept his gaze fixed on the sufferer, and put some brief questions to Helene as she stood by the bedside.

“How old is the child?”

“Eleven years and six months, sir,” was the reply.

Silence again fell between them.  He shook his head, and stooped to raise one of Jeanne’s lowered eyelids and examine the mucus.  Then he resumed his questions, but without raising his eyes to Helene.

“Did she have convulsions when she was a baby?”

“Yes, sir; but they left her after she reached her sixth birthday.  Ah! she is very delicate.  For some days past she had seemed ill at ease.  She was at times taken with cramp, and plunged in a stupor.”

“Do you know of any members of your family that have suffered from nervous affections?”

“I don’t know.  My mother was carried off by consumption.”

Here shame made her pause.  She could not confess that she had a grandmother who was an inmate of a lunatic asylum.[*] There was something tragic connected with all her ancestry.

[*] This is Adelaide Fouque, otherwise Aunt Dide, the ancestress of
    the Rougon-Macquart family, whose early career is related in the
    “Fortune of the Rougons,” whilst her death is graphically
    described in the pages of “Dr. Pascal.”

“Take care! the convulsions are coming on again!” now hastily exclaimed the doctor.

Jeanne had just opened her eyes, and for a moment she gazed around her with a vacant look, never speaking a word.  Her glance then grew fixed, her body was violently thrown backwards, and her limbs became distended and rigid.  Her skin, fiery-red, all at once turned livid.  Her pallor was the pallor of death; the convulsions began once more.

“Do not loose your hold of her,” said the doctor.  “Take her other hand!”

He ran to the table, where, on entering, he had placed a small medicine-case.  He came back with a bottle, the contents of which he made Jeanne inhale; but the effect was like that of a terrible lash; the child gave such a violent jerk that she slipped from her mother’s hands.