'Well, well, she at any rate keeps neat and clean,' said the priest, glancing at Minouche as she continued washing herself with her tongue. Chanteau, who, like the others, was looking towards the cat, now began to moan more loudly with that incessant involuntary expression of pain which had become so habitual to him that he had grown unconscious of it. 'Are you feeling worse?' the Doctor asked him. 'Eh? What? Why do you ask?' he said, suddenly seeming to awake. 'Ah, it's because I'm breathing heavily. Yes, I am in great pain this evening. I thought that the sun would do me good, but I feel as though I were being suffocated, and I haven't a joint that isn't burning.' Cazenove examined his hands. They all shuddered at the sight of those poor deformed stumps. The priest made another of his sensible remarks. 'Such fingers as those are not adapted for playing draughts. That's an amusement which you can't have now.' 'Be very careful about what you eat and drink,' the Doctor urged. 'Your elbow is highly inflamed, and the ulceration is increasing.' 'How can I be more careful than I am?' Chanteau wailed hopelessly. 'My wine is all measured out and my meat is weighed! Must I give up taking anything at all? Indeed, it isn't living to go on like this, and one might as well die at once. I can't eat even without assistance--how is it likely with such things as these at the end of my arms?--and you may be quite sure that Pauline, who feeds me, takes care that I don't get anything that I oughtn't to have.' The girl smiled. 'Ah! yes, indeed,' she said, 'you ate too much yesterday. It was my fault, but I couldn't refuse when I saw how your appetite was distressing you.' At this they all pretended to grow merry, and began to tease him about the junketings in which they declared he still indulged. But their voices trembled with pity as they glanced at that remnant of a man, that inert mass of flesh, which now only lived enough to suffer. He had fallen back into his usual position, with his body leaning to the right and his hands lying on his knees. 'This evening now, for instance,' Pauline continued, 'we are going to have a roast duck----' But she suddenly checked herself to ask: 'By the way, did you see anything of Véronique as you came through Verchemont?' Then she told Lazare and the Doctor the story of Véronique's disappearance. Neither of them had seen anything of her. They expressed some astonishment at the woman's strange whims, and ended by growing merry over the subject. It would be a fine sight, they said, to see her face when she came back and found them already round the table with the dinner cooked and served. 'I must leave you now,' said Pauline gaily, 'for I have to attend to the kitchen. If I let the stew get burnt, or serve the duck underdone, my uncle will give me notice!'