The little girl had the utmost confidence in her young physician, and seeing with what tenderness he dressed her burns, she bore the pain with rare fortitude. The right side of her body was a mass of sores. With compressed lips she endured the agony of having the cotton changed, not a cry escaping her. When the pain was less intense, when she was comparatively easy, the young doctor questioned her concerning her family and home life, winning her confidence by his kind and sympathetic manner. Alas! little Madelaine’s story was a sad one. Her father, a well-born, honest, and worthy man, becoming financially embarrassed, had ended his troubles by committing suicide. He had left four children and a nervous, sickly wife to battle with the world. The mother soon afterward had died, and young Madelaine had been left to provide for her little brothers and sister--not for long, however, for in trying to save her youngest charge, who perished in a fire, she herself had been terribly burned, and the two other children had been handed over to charity. Quite simply she told her story, as though her pain and suffering were but natural and merited. Monsieur Eugène was touched. “First,” he mentally concluded, “let me cure her and then I will see what can be done.” Every day he brought to her some delicacy: a basket of fruit, a nosegay, or some bonbons. Never was a brother more devoted to a sister than was he to the afflicted child. The treatment to which he resorted seemed certain. It was now only a question of time, and each day the affection between the two grew stronger. “Fortunately I am rich, and when she is strong enough I will establish her in a little flower-stall wherever she wishes it to be located.” Then the hot weather came and Eugène redoubled his precautions and care. One day, however, he found a little white spot upon the flesh where the burn had resisted his treatment. Calling the chief surgeon, he showed him the spot and expressed his own fears in a whisper. “That is nothing,” said the surgeon. “Don’t worry about it.” He prescribed another application, but on the following day Madelaine was worse. Then Eugène called in consultation the most famous practitioners in all Paris, but in vain. Twenty-four hours later the young girl died in his arms. Science had failed to save her. The grief-stricken young physician thus depreciated the art of healing: “For what purpose is science? What matters it how hard one studies or how deeply one delves into scientific research if one can do nothing at a time like this? Science, after all, is only an illusion, and the scientists are humbugs. I do not wish to deceive those who come to me in confidence. I will renounce this so-called science. I will not be a physician.”