After an abominable month of May, June set in with very warm weather. Westerly gales had been blowing for the last three weeks, storms had devastated the coast, swept away masses of the cliffs, swallowed up boats, and killed many people; but now the broad blue sky, the satiny sea, and the bright hot days were infinitely pleasant and enjoyable. One glorious afternoon Pauline had wheeled Chanteau's chair on to the terrace, and near him, on a red woollen rug, she had deposited little Paul, who was now eighteen months old. She was his godmother, and she spoilt the child as much as she did the grandfather. 'Are you sure the sun won't inconvenience you, uncle?' she asked. 'Oh dear no! I should think not, indeed! It is so long since I saw it. Are you going to leave little Paul asleep there?' 'Yes. The fresh air will do him good.' She knelt down on the edge of the rug and gazed at him. He was dressed in a white frock, with bare legs and arms peeping beyond it. His eyes were fast closed, and his quiet little rosy face was turned up towards the sky. 'He has dropped off to sleep at once,' she said softly. 'He tired himself out with rolling about. Don't let the animals bother him.' She shook her finger at Minouche, who sat at the dining-room window making an elaborate toilet. Some distance off Loulou lay stretched out on the gravel, opening his eyes every now and then with a glance of suspicion, and ever ready to snarl and bite. As Pauline rose to her feet again, a low groan came from Chanteau. 'Ah! has your pain returned?' 'Returned! Ah! it never leaves me now. I groaned, eh? Well, it's funny, but I do so without even being aware of it.' He had become a most pitiable object. By degrees his chronic gout had led to the accumulation of cretaceous matter at all his joints, and great chalk-stones had formed and pushed out through his skin. His feet, which were hidden out of sight in his slippers, were contracted inwards like the claws of a sickly bird. But his hands openly displayed all their horrible deformity, swollen as they were at every joint with gleaming red knots, the fingers warped by swellings which forced them apart, and the left hand being rendered especially hideous by a secretion as big as a small egg. On the left elbow, too, a more voluminous deposit had brought on an ulcer. Ankylosis was now complete; Chanteau could no longer make use of his hands or feet, and the few joints which could still slightly bend cracked with as much noise as though a bag of marbles were being shaken. His whole body seemed to have become petrified in the position which he had adopted as the least painful--that is, a somewhat forward one, with an inclination to the right; and he had so completely shaped himself to his easy-chair that even when he was put to bed he remained twisted and bent. His pain never left him now, and the least change in the weather, or a drop of wine, or a mouthful of meat in excess of his usual diet, brought on inflammation.