For a whole week Chanteau lay groaning. Just when the attack seemed over, his right foot was seized by the foe, and all his agony returned with increased violence. The whole house rang with his cries. Véronique kept in the depths of her kitchen so as to escape the sound of them, and Madame Chanteau and Lazare sometimes actually ran out of the house, quite overcome by nervous excitement. It was only Pauline who remained with the sick man, and she indeed never left his room. She was ever struggling with his foolish whims and fancies; as, for instance, when he furiously insisted upon having a cutlet cooked, saying that he was very hungry, and roundly declaring that Doctor Cazenove was an ass and didn't know what was good for him. The night was the worst time, for then the attacks seemed to come on with increased violence. Pauline could only snatch some two or three hours' sleep. But, in spite of it all, she retained her spirits, and her health did not seem in any way to suffer. Madame Chanteau readily accepted her services, until, when Chanteau was again convalescent, the girl at last regained her liberty; and then a close companionship sprang up between her and Lazare. It took its rise in that by-room which the young man occupied upstairs. He had had a partition knocked down, and so this room of his covered half of the second storey. A little iron bedstead was hidden away behind a tattered old screen. Against the wall and on the bare floor-boards were piled a thousand volumes of books, classical works, largely imperfect sets, which had been discovered in a lumber-room at Caen and had been transported to Bonneville. Near the window there was a huge antique Norman wardrobe crammed with all kinds of out-of-the-way objects, specimens of minerals, old and useless tools, and broken toys. There was a piano, also, over which were hung a pair of foils and a fencing-mask; and there was an enormous table in the centre, an old high drawing-table, so completely littered with papers, engravings, tobacco-jars and pipes that it was difficult to find a hand's-breadth of space available for writing. Pauline was delighted when she was given the freedom of this wild chaos. She spent a month in exploring it thoroughly, and every day she made some new discovery, such as an illustrated 'Robinson Crusoe' which she came upon in rummaging amongst the books, or a doll which she fished out of the miscellaneous collection in the cupboard. As soon as she was dressed of a morning, she sprang out of her own room into her cousin's and settled herself there; and in the afternoon she often returned thither again.