him with full moral responsibility."

He signed the sheet and handed it to Pradel, saying:

"Here's something that is innocuous and too devoid of meaning to contain
the slightest falsehood."

Pradel rose and said:

"Believe me, my dear doctors we should not have asked you to tell a
lie."

"Why not? I am a medical man. I keep a lie-shop. I relieve, I console.
How is it possible to relieve and console without lying?"

Then, with a sympathetic glance at Nanteuil; he added:

"Only women and physicians know how necessary untruthfulness is, and how
beneficial to man."

And, as Pradel, Constantin Mate, and Romilly were taking their leave, he
said:

"Pray go out by the dining-room. I've just received a small cask of old
Armagnac. You'll tell me what you think of it!"

Nanteuil had remained behind in the doctor's consulting room.

"My little Socrates, I have spent an awful night. I saw him."

"During your sleep?"

"No, when wide awake."

"You are sure you were not sleeping?"

"Quite sure."

He was on the point of asking her if the apparition had spoken to her.
But he left the question unspoken, fearing lest he might suggest to so
sensitive a subject those hallucinations of the sense of hearing, which,
by reason of their imperious nature, he dreaded far more than visual
hallucinations. He was familiar with the docility of the sick in obeying
orders given them by voices. Abandoning the idea of questioning Felicie,
he resolved, at all hazards, to remove any scruples of conscience which
might be troubling her. At the same time, having observed that,
generally speaking, the sense of moral responsibility is weak in women,
he made no great effort in that direction, and contented himself with
remarking lightly:

"My dear child, you must not consider yourself responsible for the death
of that poor fellow. A suicide inspired by passion is the inevitable
termination of a pathological condition. Every individual who commits
suicide had to commit suicide. You are merely the incidental cause of an
accident, which is, of course, deplorable, but the importance of which
should not be exaggerated."

Thinking that he had said enough on this score, he applied himself
immediately to dispersing the terrors which surrounded her. He sought to
convince her by simple arguments that she was beholding images which had
no reality, mere reflections of her own thoughts. In order to
illustrate his demonstration, he told her a story of