“Jeanne! my Jeanne! what ails you? tell me, love,” she asked; and as the child remained silent, she murmured, while running towards the night-light, “Gracious Heaven! why did I go to bed when she was so ill?” Quickly she entered the closet, where deep silence had again fallen. The feeble gleam of the lamp threw but a circular patch of light on the ceiling. Bending over the iron cot, she could at first make out nothing, but amidst the bed-clothes, tossed about in disorder, the dim light soon revealed Jeanne, with limbs quite stiff, her head flung back, the muscles of her neck swollen and rigid. Her sweet face was distorted, her eyes were open and fixed on the curtain-rod above. “My child!” cried Hélène. “My God! my God! she is dying.” Setting down the lamp, Hélène touched her daughter with trembling hands. The throbbing of the pulse and the heart’s action seemed to have died away. The child’s puny arms and legs were stretched out convulsively, and the mother grew frantic at the sight. “My child is dying! Help, help!” she stammered. “My child! my child!” She wandered back to her room, brushing against the furniture, and unconscious of her movements; then, distracted, she again returned to the little bed, throwing herself on her knees, and ever appealing for help. She took Jeanne in her arms, rained kisses on her hair, and stroked her little body, begging her to answer, and seeking one word—only one word—from her silent lips. Where was the pain? Would she have some of the cooling drink she had liked the other day? Perhaps the fresh air would revive her? So she rattled on, bent on making the child speak. “Speak to me, Jeanne! speak to me, I entreat you!” Oh, God! and not to know what to do in this sudden terror born of the night! There was no light even. Then her ideas grew confused, though her supplications to the child continued—at one moment she was beseeching, at another answering in her own person. Thus, the pain gripped her in the stomach; no, no, it must be in the breast. It was nothing at all; she need merely keep quiet. Then Hélène tried to collect her scattered senses; but as she felt her daughter stark and stiff in her embrace, her heart sickened unto death. She tried to reason with herself, and to resist the yearning to scream. But all at once, despite herself, her cry rang out “Rosalie, Rosalie! my child is dying. Quick, hurry for the doctor.”