he
seemed to hold her after their quarrel of the day before. She who had
got up with so great a desire to make peace at once! He was in no hurry,
however; he did not love her then, since he could be satisfied to live
at variance with her. And gradually a feeling of gloom took possession
of her, her rebellious thoughts returned, and she resolved anew to yield
in nothing.

At eleven o'clock, before setting her breakfast on the fire, Martine
came to her for a moment, the eternal stocking in her hand which she
was always knitting even while walking, when she was not occupied in the
affairs of the house.

"Do you know that he is still shut up there like a wolf in his hole, at
his villainous cookery?"

Clotilde shrugged her shoulders, without lifting her eyes from her
embroidery.

"And then, mademoiselle, if you only knew what they say! Mme. Felicite
was right yesterday when she said that it was really enough to make one
blush. They threw it in my face that he had killed old Boutin, that
poor old man, you know, who had the falling sickness and who died on
the road. To believe those women of the faubourg, every one into whom he
injects his remedy gets the true cholera from it, without counting that
they accuse him of having taken the devil into partnership."

A short silence followed. Then, as the young girl became more gloomy
than before, the servant resumed, moving her fingers still more rapidly:

"As for me, I know nothing about the matter, but what he is making there
enrages me. And you, mademoiselle, do you approve of that cookery?"

At last Clotilde raised her head quickly, yielding to the flood of
passion that swept over her.

"Listen; I wish to know no more about it than you do, but I think that
he is on a very dangerous path. He no longer loves us."

"Oh, yes, mademoiselle; he loves us."

"No, no; not as we love him. If he loved us, he would be here with us,
instead of endangering his soul and his happiness and ours, up there, in
his desire to save everybody."

And the two women looked at each other for a moment with eyes burning
with affection, in their jealous anger. Then they resumed their work in
silence, enveloped in shadow.

Above, in his room, Dr. Pascal was working with the serenity of perfect
joy. He had practised his profession for only about a dozen years, from
his return to Paris up to the time when he had retired to La Souleiade.
Satisfied with the hundred and odd thousand francs which he h