Madame Gerdy lived in respectable style.  She possessed sufficient for her wants; and her son’s practice, already large, had made them almost rich.  She lived very quietly, and with the exception of one or two friends, whom Noel occasionally invited to dinner, received very few visitors.  During more than fifteen years that M. Tabaret came familiarly to the apartments, he had only met the cure of the parish, one of Noel’s old professors, and Madame Gerdy’s brother, a retired colonel.  When these three visitors happened to call on the same evening, an event somewhat rare, they played at a round game called Boston; on other evenings piquet or all-fours was the rule.  Noel, however, seldom remained in the drawing-room, but shut himself up after dinner in his study, which with his bedroom formed a separate apartment to his mother’s, and immersed himself in his law papers.  He was supposed to work far into the night.  Often in winter his lamp was not extinguished before dawn.

Mother and son absolutely lived for one another, as all who knew them took pleasure in repeating.  They loved and honoured Noel for the care he bestowed upon his mother, for his more than filial devotion, for the sacrifices which all supposed he made in living at his age like an old man.

The neighbours were in the habit of contrasting the conduct of this exemplary young man with that of M. Tabaret, the incorrigible old rake, the hairless dangler.

As for Madame Gerdy, she saw nothing but her son in all the world.  Her love had actually taken the form of worship.  In Noel she believed she saw united all the physical and moral perfections.  To her he seemed of a superior order to the rest of humanity.  If he spoke, she was silent and listened:  his word was a command, his advice a decree of Providence.  To care for her son, study his tastes, anticipate his wishes, was the sole aim of her life.  She was a mother.

“Is Madame Gerdy visible?” asked old Tabaret of the girl who opened the door; and, without waiting for an answer, he walked into the room like a man assured that his presence cannot be inopportune, and ought to be agreeable.

A single candle lighted the drawing-room, which was not in its accustomed order.  The small marble-top table, usually in the middle of the room, had been rolled into a corner.  Madame Gerdy’s large arm-chair was near the window; a newspaper, all crumpled, lay before it on the carpet.

The amateur detective took in the whole at a glance.

“Has any accident happened?” he asked of the girl.

“Do not speak of it, sir:  we have just had a fright! oh, such a fright!”

“What was it? tell me quickly!”

“You know that madame has been ailing for the last month.  She has eaten I may say almost nothing.  This morning, even, she said to me—­”

“Yes, yes! but this evening?”

“After her dinner, madame went into the drawing-room as usual.  She sat down and took up one of M. Noel’s newspapers.  Scarcely had she begun to read, when she uttered a great cry,—­oh, a terrible cry!  We hastened to her; madame had fallen on to the floor, as one dead.  M. Noel raised her in his arms, and carried her into her room.  I wanted to fetch the doctor, sir, but he said there was no need; he knew what was the matter with her.”