A feeling of revulsion at last awoke within Hélène. To all seeming her daughter would be her death. Why, when her illness had been put to flight, did the ill-natured child work her utmost to torment her? If one of those intoxicating dreams took possession of her imagination—a mystic dream in which she found herself traversing a country alike unknown and entrancing with Henri by her side Jeanne’s face, harsh and sullen, would suddenly start up before her and thus her heart was ever being rent in twain. The struggle between her maternal affection and her passion became fraught with the greatest suffering. One evening, despite Hélène’s formal edict of banishment, the doctor called. For eight days they had been unable to exchange a word together. She would fain that he had not entered; but he did so on learning that Jeanne was in a deep sleep. They sat down as of old, near the window, far from the glare of the lamp, with the peaceful shadows around them. For two hours their conversation went on in such low whispers that scarcely a sound disturbed the silence of the large room. At times they turned their heads and glanced at the delicate profile of Jeanne, whose little hands, clasped together, were reposing on the coverlet. But in the end they grew forgetful of their surroundings, and their talk incautiously became louder. Then, all at once, Jeanne’s voice rang out. “Mamma! mamma!” she cried, seized with sudden agitation, as though suffering from nightmare. She writhed about in her bed, her eyelids still heavy with sleep, and then struggled to reach a sitting posture. “Hide, I beseech you!” whispered Hélène to the doctor in a tone of anguish. “You will be her death if you stay here.” In an instant Henri vanished into the window-recess, concealed by the blue velvet curtain; but it was in vain, the child still kept up her pitiful cry: “Oh, mamma! mamma! I suffer so much.” “I am here beside you, my darling; where do you feel the pain?” “I don’t know. Oh, see, it is here! Oh, it is scorching me!” With eyes wide open and features distorted, she pressed her little hands to her bosom. “It came on me in a moment. I was asleep, wasn’t I? But I felt something like a burning coal.” “But it’s all gone now. You’re not pained any longer, are you?” “Yes, yes, I feel it still.” She glanced uneasily round the room. She was now wholly awake; the sullen gloom crept over her face once more, and her cheeks became livid. “Are you by yourself, mamma?” she asked. “Of course I am, my darling!” Nevertheless Jeanne shook her head and gazed about, sniffing the air, while her agitation visibly increased. “No, you’re not; I know you’re not. There’s some one—Oh, mamma! I’m afraid, I’m afraid! You are telling me a story; you are not by yourself.”