‘The garden must have been very gay,’ said Madame Berthier; ‘what roses! but ah! how the rain has battered them, and the flood has spoiled the beds. Why do you grow so many pink and white roses? I like this yellow one.’ Gabrielle put her hand on the latch and gently opened the door. She looked in; it was dark, for the little green blind was drawn across the window. ‘Go in, my child,’ said the lady; ‘I will look about me, and then I shall come to you. I want to see the papa, so much.’ The girl stepped into the room, and called her father. How silent the house seemed to be! the air within was close and hot. ‘Father, where are you?’ she called again. Madame Berthier was picking some roses, when she heard a scream. She ran to the cottage-door, sprang in, and saw Gabrielle standing against the wall, her eyes distended with horror, her hands raised, and the palms open before her, as though to repel some one or something she saw. ‘What is the matter?’ asked madame. ‘It is so dark in here.’ She drew back the window-curtain. ‘Ah!’ There, in a corner, where the ladder conducting to the upper rooms had stood, hung Matthias André, with his head on one side, his eyes open and fixed, the hands clenched and the feet contracted. ‘Mon Dieu! is that the papa?’ exclaimed Madame Berthier. ‘Why, really, he is not unlike me. See! our faces are much alike. I am Madame Plomb, and he is Monsieur Plomb.’ The girl was falling. The strange woman carried her out into the open air. ‘His complexion is darker than mine,’ she said, musingly; ‘but we are something alike.’ CHAPTER XI. The shock was too much for Gabrielle’s already excited nerves to bear, and she remained for several days prostrated with fever. During this time, Madame Berthier attended her with gentle care and affection. She administered medicines with her own hand, slept in the room beside her, or kept watch night and day. The unfortunate woman having at length found a human being whom she could love, concentrated upon her the pent-up ardour of her soul. The cat attracted less attention than heretofore, and for some days his cradles were neglected. If Madame Berthier had been given a companion whom she could love, in times gone by, and had been less ill-treated by her husband and neglected by her father, she would never have become deranged; it is possible that a course of gentle treatment and forbearance from irritating conduct on the part of M. Berthier might eventually have restored her already shaken intellect; but such treatment and forbearance she was not to receive. Madame Berthier was walking in the courtyard one day, when Gabrielle was convalescent. Her husband and father had returned, but she had seen little of them. The former carefully avoided the wing occupied by the invalid and his wife, out of apprehension of infection, for he was peculiarly fearful of sickness; and Foulon did not approach them, not having occasion.