'I don't want to go away before my time,' replied Madame Chanteau, as she laid her head back again upon her pillow. 'Listen! my lungs are quite sound; and it's not impossible that she may go before I do, for she isn't very healthy.' Pauline had heard her. She turned with a heart-pang and looked at Véronique; and instead of coming any nearer she stepped further away, feeling quite ashamed of her aunt for her abominable suspicions. A sudden change came over her feelings. The idea of that unhappy woman, consumed by fear and hatred, moved her to the deepest pity; far from feeling any increase of bitterness, it was sorrowful emotion that she experienced as her eyes caught sight of all the medicine which her aunt had thrown away under the bed, from a fear of being poisoned. Until the evening she evinced persevering gentleness, and did not appear to notice the distrustful glances with which her aunt followed every motion of her hands. Her one ardent desire was to overcome the dying woman's fears by affectionate attentions, in order that she might not carry such frightful suspicions to the grave. And she forbade Véronique to distress Lazare further by telling him the truth. Only once since morning had Madame Chanteau asked for her son, and she had appeared quite content with the first excuse made for his absence, evincing no surprise at not seeing him again. She said nothing about her husband, expressed no uneasiness whatever about his being left alone in the dining-room. All the world was gradually disappearing for her, and, minute by minute, the icy coldness of her limbs seemed to mount higher till it chilled her very heart. Whenever meal-time came round, Pauline had to go downstairs and tell some fib to her uncle. In the evening she told one to Lazare as well, assuring him that the swelling was subsiding. In the night, however, the disease made alarming progress, and the next morning, soon after daybreak, when Pauline and the servant beheld the sick woman they were terrified by the wandering look in her eyes. Her face was not changed, and there was no feverishness, but her mind appeared to be failing her, a fixed idea seemed to be destroying her reason. She had reached the last phase; her brain, gradually wrought upon by a single absorbing passion, had now become a prey to insanity. That morning, before Doctor Cazenove's arrival, they had a terrible time. Madame Chanteau would not even let her niece come near her. 'Do let me nurse you, I beg you!' Pauline said. 'Just let me raise you a little, as you are lying so uncomfortably.' But her aunt began to struggle as though they were trying to suffocate her. 'No, no! You have got a pair of scissors there! Ah! you are sticking them into me! I can feel them! I can feel them! I'm bleeding all over!'