“Poor darling!” said Lydie, kissing her dream lovingly.  “I do think she is better since morning.  What had I better give her, doctor?  Broth disgusts her, and she won’t take soup.”

“Well,” said Cerizet, “try panada.  Does she like sweet things?”

“Oh, yes!” cried the poor girl, her face brightening, “she adores them.  Would chocolate be good for her?”

“Certainly,” replied Cerizet, “but without vanilla; vanilla is very heating.”

“Then I’ll get what they call health-chocolate,” said Lydie, with all the intonations of a mother, listening to the doctor as to a god who reassured her.  “Uncle,” she added, “please ring for Bruneau, and tell him to go to Marquis at once and get some pounds of that chocolate.”

“Bruneau has just gone out,” said her guardian; “but there’s no hurry, he shall go in the course of the day.”

“There, she is going to sleep,” said Cerizet, anxious to put an end to the scene, which, in spite of his hardened nature, he felt to be painful.

“True,” said the girl, replacing the bandages and rising; “I’ll put her to bed.  Adieu, doctor; it is very kind of you to come sometimes without being sent for.  If you knew how anxious we poor mothers are, and how, with a word or two, you can do us such good.  Ah, there she is crying!”

“She is so sleepy,” said Cerizet; “she’ll be much better in her cradle.”

“Yes, and I’ll play her that sonata of Beethoven that dear papa was so fond of; it is wonderful how calming it is.  Adieu, doctor,” she said again, pausing on the threshold of the door.  “Adieu, kind doctor!” And she sent him a kiss.

Cerizet was quite overcome.

“You see,” said du Portail, “that she is an angel,—­never the least ill-humor, never a sharp word; sad sometimes, but always caused by a feeling of motherly solicitude.  That is what first gave the doctors the idea that if reality could take the place of her constant hallucination she might recover her reason.  Well, this is the girl that fool of a Peyrade refuses, with the accompaniment of a magnificent ‘dot.’  But he must come to it, or I’ll forswear my name.  Listen,” he added as the sound of a piano came to them; “hear! what talent!  Thousands of sane women can’t compare with her; they are not as reasonable as she is, except on the surface.”

When Beethoven’s sonata, played from the soul with a perfection of shades and tones that filled her hardened hearer with admiration, had ceased to sound, Cerizet said:—­

“I agree with you, monsieur; la Peyrade refuses an angel, a treasure, a pearl, and if I were in his place—­But we shall bring him round to your purpose.  Now I shall serve you not only with zeal, but with enthusiasm, I may say fanaticism.”

As Cerizet was concluding this oath of fidelity at the door of the study, he heard a woman’s voice which was not that of Lydie.

“Is he in his study, the dear commander?” said that voice, with a slightly foreign accent.