“Ah ha!” laughed Vanda, noticing his look, “do you want to know what those cords are for?”

“Vanda!” said her father, hastily, “calm yourself, my daughter.  See! here comes tea.  That, monsieur,” he continued, turning to Godefroid, “is rather a costly affair.  My daughter cannot rise, and therefore it is difficult to change her sheets.  Those cords are fastened to pulleys; by slipping a square of leather beneath her and drawing it up by the four corners with these pulleys, we are able to make her bed without fatigue to her or to ourselves.”

“They swing me!” cried Vanda, gaily.

Happily, Auguste now came in with a teapot, which he placed on a table, together with the Sevres tea-set; then he brought cakes and sandwiches and cream.  This sight diverted his mother’s mind from the nervous crisis which seemed to threaten her.

“See, Vanda, here is Nathan’s new novel.  If you wake in the night you will have something to read.”

“Oh! delightful!  ‘La Perle de Dol;’ it must be a love-story,—­Auguste, I have something to tell you!  I’m to have an accordion!”

Auguste looked up suddenly with a strange glance at his grandfather.

“See how he loves his mother!” cried Vanda.  “Come and kiss me, my kitten.  No, it is not your grandfather you are to thank, but monsieur, who is good enough to lend me one.  I am to have it to-morrow.  How are they made, monsieur?”

Godefroid, at a sign from the old man, explained an accordion at length, while sipping the tea which Auguste brought him and which was in truth, exquisite.

About half-past ten o’clock he retired, weary of beholding the desperate struggle of the son and father, admiring their heroism, and the daily, hourly patience with which they played their double parts, each equally exhausting.

“Well,” said Monsieur Bernard, who followed him home, “you now see, monsieur, the life I live.  I am like a thief, on the watch all the time.  A word, a gesture might kill my daughter; a mere gewgaw less than she is accustomed to seeing about her would reveal all to that mind that can penetrate everything.”

“Monsieur,” replied Godefroid, “on Monday next Halpersohn shall pronounce upon your daughter.  He has returned.  I myself doubt the possibility of any science being able to revive that body.”

“Oh!  I don’t expect that,” cried the father; “all I ask is that her life be made supportable.  I felt sure, monsieur, of your sympathy, and I see that you have indeed comprehended everything—­Ah! there’s the attack coming on!” he exclaimed, as the sound of a cry came through the partition; “she went beyond her strength.”

Pressing Godefroid’s hand, the old man hurriedly returned to his own rooms.

At eight o’clock the next morning Godefroid knocked at the door of the celebrated Polish doctor.  He was shown by a footman to the first floor of a little house Godefroid had been examining while the porter was seeking and informing the footman.