Charles noticed that at the bottom of the basin there was a sort of white sediment sticking to the sides of the porcelain.

“This is extraordinary—­very singular,” he repeated.

But she said in a firm voice, “No, you are mistaken.”

Then gently, and almost as caressing her, he passed his hand over her stomach.  She uttered a sharp cry.  He fell back terror-stricken.

Then she began to groan, faintly at first.  Her shoulders were shaken by a strong shuddering, and she was growing paler than the sheets in which her clenched fingers buried themselves.  Her unequal pulse was now almost imperceptible.

Drops of sweat oozed from her bluish face, that seemed as if rigid in the exhalations of a metallic vapour.  Her teeth chattered, her dilated eyes looked vaguely about her, and to all questions she replied only with a shake of the head; she even smiled once or twice.  Gradually, her moaning grew louder; a hollow shriek burst from her; she pretended she was better and that she would get up presently.  But she was seized with convulsions and cried out—­

“Ah! my God!  It is horrible!”

He threw himself on his knees by her bed.

“Tell me! what have you eaten?  Answer, for heaven’s sake!”

And he looked at her with a tenderness in his eyes such as she had never seen.

“Well, there—­there!” she said in a faint voice.  He flew to the writing-table, tore open the seal, and read aloud:  “Accuse no one.”  He stopped, passed his hands across his eyes, and read it over again.

“What! help—­help!”

He could only keep repeating the word:  “Poisoned! poisoned!” Felicite ran to Homais, who proclaimed it in the market-place; Madame Lefrancois heard it at the “Lion d’Or”; some got up to go and tell their neighbours, and all night the village was on the alert.

Distraught, faltering, reeling, Charles wandered about the room.  He knocked against the furniture, tore his hair, and the chemist had never believed that there could be so terrible a sight.

He went home to write to Monsieur Canivet and to Doctor Lariviere.  He lost his head, and made more than fifteen rough copies.  Hippolyte went to Neufchatel, and Justin so spurred Bovary’s horse that he left it foundered and three parts dead by the hill at Bois-Guillaume.

Charles tried to look up his medical dictionary, but could not read it; the lines were dancing.

“Be calm,” said the druggist; “we have only to administer a powerful antidote.  What is the poison?”

Charles showed him the letter.  It was arsenic.

“Very well,” said Homais, “we must make an analysis.”

For he knew that in cases of poisoning an analysis must be made; and the other, who did not understand, answered—­

“Oh, do anything! save her!”

Then going back to her, he sank upon the carpet, and lay there with his head leaning against the edge of her bed, sobbing.