“Madame, if the case was not grave, should I take this unusual step?  I tell you if some change does not take place soon, he will be a dead man in another fortnight.  That is all time will do for him.”

The baroness uttered an exclamation of pity and distress.  Josephine put her hand to her bosom, and a creeping horror came over her, and then a faintness.  She sat working mechanically, and turning like ice within.  After a few minutes of this, she rose with every appearance of external composure and left the room.  In the passage she met Rose coming hastily towards the salon laughing:  the first time she had laughed this many a day.  Oh, what a contrast between the two faces that met there—­the one pale and horror stricken, the other rosy and laughing!

“Well, dear, at last I am paid for all my trouble, and yours, by a discovery; he never drinks a drop of his medicine; he pours it into the ashes under the grate; I caught him in the fact.”

“Then this is too much:  I can resist no longer.  Come with me,” said Josephine doggedly.

“Where?”

“To him.”

CHAPTER XII.

Josephine paused on the landing, and laid her hand on Rose’s shoulder.  It was so cold it made Rose shudder, and exacted a promise from her not to contradict a word she should say to Camille.  “I do not go to him for my pleasure, but for his life,” she said; “I must deceive him and save him; and then let me lie down and die.”

“Oh, that the wretch had never been born!” cried Rose, in despair.  But she gave the required promise, and offered to go and tell Camille Josephine was coming to visit him.

But Josephine declined this.  “No,” said she; “give me every advantage; I must think beforehand every word I shall say; but take him by surprise, coward and doubleface that I am.”

Rose knocked at the door.  A faint voice said, “Come in.”  The sisters entered the room very softly.  Camille sat on the sofa, his head bowed over his hands.  A glance showed Josephine that he was doggedly and resolutely thrusting himself into the grave.  Thinking it was only Rose—­for he had now lost all hope of seeing Josephine come in at the door—­he never moved.  Some one glided gently but rapidly up to him.  He looked up.  Josephine was kneeling to him.

He lifted his head with a start, and trembled all over.

She whispered, “I am come to you to beg your pity; to appeal to your generosity; to ask a favor; I who deserve so little of you.”

“You have waited a long time,” said Camille, agitated greatly; “and so have I.”

“Camille, you are torturing one who loved you once, and who has been very weak and faithless, but not so wicked as she appears.”

“How am I torturing you?”

“With remorse; do I not suffer enough?  Would you make me a murderess?”

“Why have you never been near me?” retorted Camille.  “I could forgive your weakness, but not your heartlessness.”