He seemed a little hurt that Madame Chapdelaine should be the victim of an obscure malady, hard to diagnose, and had not been taken down with one of the two complaints he was accustomed to treat with such success, and he gave an account by chapter and verse of the manner in which he had cured the postmaster of St. Henri.  From that they passed on to the country news—­news carried by word of mouth from house to house around Lake St. John, and greeted a thousandfold more eagerly than tidings of wars and famines, since the gossipers always manage to connect it with friend or relative in a country where all ties of kinship, near or far, are borne scrupulously in mind.

Madame Chapdelaine ceased moaning and seemed to be asleep.  The doctor, considering that he had done all that was expected of him, for the evening at least, knocked the ashes out of his pipe and rose to go.

“I shall sleep at Honfleur,” said he, “I suppose your horse is fit to take me so far?  There is no need for you to come, I know the road.  I shall stay with Ephrem, Surprenant, and come back in the morning.”

Chapdelaine was a little slow to make reply, recalling the stiff day’s work his old beast had already accomplished, but at the end he went out to harness Charles Eugene once more.  In a few minutes the doctor was on the road, leaving the family to themselves as usual.

A great stillness reigned in the house.  The comfortable thought was with them all:—­“Anyway the medicine he has given her is a good one; she groans no longer.”  But scarce an hour had gone by before the sick woman ceased to feel the effect of the too feeble drug, became conscious again, tried to turn herself in bed and screamed out with pain.  They were all up at once and crowding about her in their concern; she opened her eyes, and after groaning in an agonized way began to weep unrestrainedly.

“O Samuel, I am dying, there can be no doubt of it.”

“No!  No!  You must not think that.”

“Yes, I know that I am dying.  I feel it.  The doctor is only an old fool, and he cannot tell what to do.  He is not even able to say what the trouble is, and the medicine he gave me is useless; it has done me no good.  I tell you I am dying.”

The failing words were hindered with her groaning, and tears coursed down the heavy cheeks.  Husband and children looked at her, struck to the very earth with grief.  The footstep of death was sounding in the house.  They knew themselves cut off from all the world, helpless, remote, without even a horse to bring them succour.  The cruel treachery of it all held them speechless and transfixed, with streaming eyes.

In their midst appeared Eutrope Gagnon.

“And I who was thinking to find her almost well.  This doctor, now ...”

Chapdelaine broke out, quite beside himself:—­” This doctor is not a bit of use, and I shall tell him so plainly, myself.  He came here, he gave her a drop of some miserable stuff worth nothing at all in the bottom of a cup, and he is off to sleep in the village as if his pay was earned!  Not a thing has he done but tire out my horse, but he shall not have a copper from me, not a single copper...”