"Hydra-headed, remember." "_Raison de plus, mon cher_. In this century we should be able to cope with monsters. _Allons_! I long for your opinion about the depth of the beds. You say eighteen inches, and my man maintains twenty to be the minimum depth. I shall hear the reason on both sides before deciding. It is an important question, on which one should not pronounce hastily." About a week after, Therese, who had resumed her favourite walks by the river, asked Nannon: "What is this about the fever? I heard Monsieur Roulleau talking of it yesterday." "There is no use in talking, particularly when it is a little creature like that who talks. All they may say will not stop the fever." "It increases then?" "Increases? But yes. This morning we hear that it is in our street. Louise Gouye's child, of whom I have sometimes told mademoiselle, has it." "What, that pretty little blue-eyed thing?" "Yes, yes. The poor mother is in despair." "But, Nannon, it seems to spread terribly. Can nothing be done? What does Monsieur Deshoulieres say?" The old woman made a gesture of impatience. "Monsieur Deshoulieres is always poking and meddling--for what good? All the doctors in the world will not stop the fever if it pleases the good God to send it to us. If He means it to come it will come. I have heard my mother talk of it years ago in Charville, just the same. She lost her father and two brothers--fine strong young men they were--and the dead lay there in the houses, for they could not get any one to bury them. Mademoiselle sees that it was intended. What the doctors have to do is to try and cure the people who catch it." Indifference in the rich, fatalism in the poor, helped the fever along mightily. A dry, hot summer succeeded to the green promise of the spring. When July came the plains lay scorching under the fiery sunshine, and fever raged in Charville like a pestilence. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. "And looking down I saw the old town lie Black in the shade of the o'erhanging hill, Stricken with death, and dreary." _The Earthly Paradise_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It had come in earnest indeed. Creeping on by little and little, holding the ground it had conquered, fastening every day on fresh territory, the fever was no longer the shadow with which M. Deshoulieres did his best to frighten obstinate men, but a grim reality. In the narrow, picturesque, ill-ventilated streets it struck down whole families with deadly effect. Day after day the fierce sun glowed relentlessly overhead, the air throbbed like that at the mouth of a furnace, foul smells rose out of the earth. The churches were crowded, the terrified people put up passionate prayers for rain, for something to lessen the intolerable heat. The Prefet sent for M. Deshoulieres. "This is terrible," he said. "What are we to do?"