rnings; but
I cannot permit you to quit me first. Supposing he is going to get
married? But I will not allow it. I must make inquiries."

Noel, however, was not listening at the door. He went along the Rue de
Provence as quickly as possible, gained the Rue St. Lazare, and entered
the house as he had departed, by the stable door. He had but just sat
down in his study, when the servant knocked.

"Sir," cried she, "in heaven's name answer me!"

He opened the door and said impatiently, "What is it?"

"Sir," stammered the girl in tears, "this is the third time I have
knocked, and you have not answered. Come, I implore you. I am afraid
madame is dying!"

He followed her to Madame Gerdy's room. He must have found the poor
woman terribly changed, for he could not restrain a movement of terror.
The invalid struggled painfully beneath her coverings. Her face was of
a livid paleness, as though there was not a drop of blood left in her
veins; and her eyes, which glittered with a sombre light, seemed filled
with a fine dust. Her hair, loose and disordered, falling over her
cheeks and upon her shoulders, contributed to her wild appearance.
She uttered from time to time a groan hardly audible, or murmured
unintelligible words. At times, a fiercer pang than the former ones
forced a cry of anguish from her. She did not recognise Noel.

"You see, sir," said the servant.

"Yes. Who would have supposed her malady could advance so rapidly?
Quick, run to Dr. Herve's, tell him to get up, and to come at once, tell
him it is for me." And he seated himself in an arm-chair, facing the
suffering woman.

Dr. Herve was one of Noel's friends, an old school-fellow, and the
companion of his student days. The doctor's history differed in
nothing from that of most young men, who, without fortune, friends,
or influence, enter upon the practice of the most difficult, the most
hazardous of professions that exist in Paris, where one sees so many
talented young doctors forced, to earn their bread, to place themselves
at the disposition of infamous drug vendors. A man of remarkable courage
and self-reliance, Herve, his studies over, said to himself, "No, I will
not go and bury myself in the country, I will remain in Paris, I will
there become celebrated. I shall be surgeon-in-chief of an hospital, and
a knight of the Legion of Honour."

To enter upon this path of thorns, leading to a magnificent triumphal
arch, the future academician ran himself twe