“Villains,” I cried, “you have killed her.” “No, on my honor, I swear,” declared my uncle. “They found her this morning, exactly as you see.” “Do you think, then, that she did it of her own accord--that she put an end to herself? Oh, what a horrible end!” “Perhaps,” said Lerne. “However, there is another solution, and a more likely one. A supreme convulsion, I think, twisted the chain. The body was sickly. Hydrophobia declared itself some days ago. I hide nothing from you, Nicolas. I am not exculpating myself in any way. You can see that.” “Oh,” I cried, in terror, “rabies.” Lerne went on quietly, “It is possible, also, that another reason for this death escapes us. They found the dog at 8 o’clock this morning still warm. The death had taken place an hour before, and,” added he, “Macbeth succumbed at 7 o’clock--just at the same instant.” “From what did he die?” “He died of rabies also.” CHAPTER XIII EXPERIMENTS! HALLUCINATIONS! Emma, Lerne and I were in the little drawing room after lunch, when the Professor had a sort of fainting-fit. It was not the first. I had already observed similar signs of breaking health in my uncle, but this one was very clear evidence. I could observe all the details of it, and it was accompanied by curious circumstances; that is why I shall speak about it more particularly. Any one who saw them and did not know all the facts would have attributed those incidents to intellectual overwork. To tell the truth, my uncle did have spells of overwork. The laboratory, hothouse and _château_ were no longer sufficient for him. He had annexed the park, also, and now Fonval bristled with complicated poles, abnormal masts, and unusual semaphores, and as some trees interfered with the experiments, a gang of woodcutters was sent for, in order to cut them down. The joy of seeing the possibility of free passage to and fro restored in the grounds consoled me for this sacrilegious destruction. All about the immense workshop of the valley basin one saw the Professor feverishly moving about from one building to another, from a dynamo to a switch, ferociously determined to suppress the fatal “attachment.” Sometimes, however, he had an attack of weakness, as the result of one of those very peculiar fainting-fits which I am describing. It was always whilst he was reflecting profoundly, with his eyes fixed on some object or other, and brain working at high pressure that the attack came, and he collapsed. At such times he became paler and paler, until the color came back into his cheeks by itself, and by degrees. Those attacks left him limp and without strength. They robbed him of his fine feeling of confidence, and I heard him complain after one of them, and murmur in a tone of discouragement: “I’ll never succeed, never!” Often had I been on the point of asking him about it. That day I made up my mind to do so. * * * * *