After the doctor’s departure she had watched Bernard as he lay asleep at last: she thought to herself: “There is nothing to prove it was _that_; it may be an attack of appendicitis, though there were no other symptoms ... or an attack of gastric influenza.” But Bernard was up again two days later. “It looks as if it must have been _that_.” Thérèse would not have sworn to it; she would like to have been sure. “Yes, I had no sort of feeling of being at the mercy of a horrible temptation: it was merely a matter of curiosity rather dangerous to satisfy. The first day on which I poured the ‘Fowler’s drops’ into his glass, before he came into the room, I remember saying to myself: ‘Just once, so as to make quite sure.... I shall know if it was that which made him ill. Just once and no more.’” * * * * * The train slowed down, whistled for some time, and then moved on again. Two or three lights in the distance: Saint Clair station. But Thérèse’s self-examination was at an end: she had taken the plunge and the dark waters had closed over her head. What followed was murder, and Bernard knew as much about it as she did: the sudden recurrence of his trouble, and Thérèse watching over him day and night, although she seemed at the end of her strength and incapable of swallowing anything, so much so that he persuaded her to try the Fowler treatment, and she got a prescription from Doctor Pédemay! Poor Doctor! He was astonished by the greenish liquid that Bernard brought up: he would not have believed that there could be such a discrepancy between an invalid’s pulse and his temperature: he had many times observed, in cases of para-typhoid, a regular pulse, notwithstanding a high degree of fever;--but what could be the meaning of this violent pulse with a temperature below the normal?... Gastric influenza, no doubt (influenza covers everything). Madame de la Trave contemplated calling in an eminent consultant but did not want to hurt the doctor’s feelings as he was an old friend; besides, Thérèse was afraid of giving Bernard a shock. Still, about the middle of August, after a more than usually alarming attack, Pédemay of his own accord asked for a second opinion; fortunately, on the very next day Bernard was better: and three weeks later they were talking of convalescence. “A fortunate escape,” said Pédemay. “If there had been time to call in the great man, he would have got all the credit for the case.”