She drew him towards her, forcing him even to seat himself at the edge of the mattress; and without troubling any further about the young woman, who had discreetly moved away, she proceeded to relieve herself in a very low voice. "Oh! yes, serious! It's a miracle if you find me alive. I wouldn't write to you, because such things can't be written. I've had a narrow escape; but now I am already better, and I believe I shall get over it again this time." He examined her, alarmed at the progress of the malady, and found she had not preserved a vestige of the handsome, healthy woman of former days. "Then you still suffer from your cramps and dizziness, my poor Aunt Phasie?" said he. She squeezed his hand fit to crush it, continuing in a still lower tone: "Just fancy, I caught him. You know, that do what I would, I could not find out how he managed to give me his drug. I didn't drink, I didn't eat anything he touched, and all the same, every night I had my inside afire. Well, he mixed it with the salt! One night, I saw him; and I was in the habit of putting salt on everything in quantities to make the food healthy!" Since Jacques had known Séverine, he sometimes pondered in doubt over this story of slow and obstinate poisoning, as one thinks of the nightmare. In his turn he tenderly pressed the hands of the invalid, and sought to calm her. "Come, is all this possible? To say such things you should really be quite sure; and, besides, it drags on too long. Ah! it's more likely an illness that the doctors do not understand!" "An illness," she resumed, with a sneer; "yes, an illness that he stuck into me! As for the doctors, you are right; two came here, who understood nothing, and who were not even of the same mind. I'll never allow another of such creatures to put a foot in this house again. Do you hear, he gave it me in the salt. I swear to you I saw him! It's for my 1,000 frcs., the 1,000 frcs. papa left me. He says to himself, that when he has done away with me, he'll soon find them. But, as to that, I defy him. They are in a place where nobody will find them. Never, never! I may die, but I am at ease on that score. No one will ever have my 1,000 frcs.!" "But, Aunt Phasie," answered Jacques, "in your place, if I were so sure as all that, I should send for the gendarmes." She made a gesture of repugnance. "Oh! no, not the gendarmes," said she. "This matter only concerns us. It is between him and me. I know that he wants to gobble me up; and naturally I do not wish him to do it. So you see I have only to defend myself; not to be such a fool as I have been with his salt. Eh! who would ever have thought it? An abortion like that, a little whipper-snapper of a man whom one could stuff into one's pocket, and who, in the long-run, would get the better of a big woman like me, if one let him have his own way with his teeth like those of a rat." She was seized with a little shiver, and breathed heavily before she could conclude.