he started up as from a dream, when, at about four o'clock, he finally heard some rapid footsteps on the stairs. 'Ah! here you are at last!' he cried. Doctor Cazenove at once ordered a second candle to be lighted, in order that he might examine Pauline properly. Lazare held one of the candles, while Véronique, whose hair the wind had thrown into wild disorder, and who was splashed with mud to the waist, stood at the head of the bed with the other. Madame Chanteau looked on. The sick girl was in a state of semi-somnolence, and could not open her mouth without a groan of pain. When the Doctor had laid her back in bed again, he, who upon his first entrance had shown signs of great uneasiness, stepped into the middle of the room with an expression of relief. 'That Véronique of yours put me into a pretty fright,' said he. 'She told me such a lot of terrible things that I thought the girl must have got poisoned, and you see that I have come with my pockets crammed full of drugs.' 'It is angina, is it not?' Lazare asked. 'Yes, simple angina. There is no occasion for alarm at present.' Madame Chanteau indulged in a little gesture of triumph, as much as to say that she had known that from the first. '"No occasion for alarm at present"!' repeated Lazare, his fears rising again. 'Are you afraid of complications?' 'No,' answered the Doctor, after some slight hesitation; 'but with these tiresome throat complaints one can never feel quite sure of anything.' He added that nothing more could be done just then, and that he would prefer waiting till the morrow to bleed the patient. But as the young man pressed him to attempt at any rate some alleviating measures, he expressed his readiness to apply some sinapisms. Véronique brought up a bowl of warm water, and the Doctor himself placed the damped mustard-leaves in position, slipping them along the girl's legs from her ankles to her knees. But they only increased her discomfort, for the fever continued unabated and her head was still throbbing frightfully. Emollient gargles were also suggested, and Madame Chanteau prepared a decoction of nettle-leaves, which had to be laid aside, however, after a first attempt to administer it, for pain rendered Pauline unable to swallow. It was nearly six o'clock, and dawn was breaking when the Doctor went away. 'I will come back about noon,' he said to Lazare on the landing. 'Be quite easy. She is all right, except for the pain.' 'And is the pain nothing?' cried the young man. 'One never ought to suffer like that!' Cazenove glanced at him, and then raised his hands to heaven at such an extraordinary pretension.