“You hear?” said Jeanne-Marie, as Madelon fell back on the pillow again muttering to herself.

“I hear,” answered the doctor, “and I see that she is in a high fever, and it may go hard with her, poor child!  It is fortunate she is with you, Jeanne-Marie,” he went on, kindly, “for you are a capital nurse, I know; but I am afraid it will be a long business.”

“That is no matter,” she answered.

“If you would like to have her removed to the hospital at Liege,” continued the doctor, doubtfully, “it might still be done.  It may injure your business to have her here.  Still, as you say she is your niece——­”

“As I say she is my niece,” returned Jeanne-Marie, abruptly, “it is not likely I should turn her out of the house, and that is enough.  My business will take care of itself.  And now tell me what I am to do, doctor?”

He prescribed for Madelon, said he would call again, and left the house, pondering on the woman who kept so apart from her neighbours, and on her small visitor, who he knew well enough was not her niece, for had not Jacques Monnier told him how Jeanne-Marie had suddenly come in out of the rain, carrying the girl in her arms, and had taken her upstairs without a word of explanation?

“There is a mystery somewhere,” thought the doctor; “but it is no concern of mine.”  And so he went his way to visit his next patient.

Jeanne-Marie had no fears concerning the doctor’s discretion; he was a man too busy in his scattered district to have much time or inclination for gossip.  But she had far less confidence in Jacques Monnier’s wisdom, and thought it not inexpedient to go downstairs, after the doctor’s departure, and give her customer a word of exhortation.  He was seated at the table as before, twirling the glass in his fingers, and gazing vacantly out of window.

“Well, Jacques,” said Jeanne-Marie, “and what did you tell the doctor?”

“I told him what you told me,” said the man, in a surly voice.

“What was that?”

“That your niece was ill, and that he was to come and see her.”

“Was that all?”

No answer.

“Was that all?” repeated Jeanne-Marie. “Allons, Jacques, don’t keep me waiting.  I will know what you said to the doctor.”

Jacques, who under other circumstances might have met this imperative mode of questioning by dogged silence, or an evasive answer, was too uncertain as to what the doctor himself might have repeated to Jeanne-Marie, to attempt equivocation.

“I told him,” he said, slowly and reluctantly, “that it was a queer thing you should have picked up your niece in the street, and that I didn’t believe she was your niece at all; and no more I do, Jeanne-Marie,” he added, gaining courage as he spoke.

“Ah! you told him that?” said the woman.  “Well, look you, Jacques, if I find you saying any such thing again, this is the very last time you cross my door-step, and that account of yours will have to be paid in full next week.  You understand?”