remembered how the child of a neighbor at Marseilles had
died of suffocation in a similar fit. Perhaps from feelings of pity
the doctor was deceiving her. Every moment she believed she felt
Jeanne's last breath against her face; for the child's halting
respiration seemed suddenly to cease. Heartbroken and overwhelmed with
terror, Helene then burst into tears, which fell on the body of her
child, who had thrown off the bedclothes.

The doctor meantime was gently kneading the base of the neck with his
long supple fingers. Gradually the fit subsided, and Jeanne, after a
few slight twitches, lay there motionless. She had fallen back in the
middle of the bed, with limbs outstretched, while her head, supported
by the pillow, inclined towards her bosom. One might have thought her
an infant Jesus. Helene stooped and pressed a long kiss on her brow.

"Is it over?" she asked in a whisper. "Do you think she'll have
another fit?"

The doctor made an evasive gesture, and then replied:

"In any case the others will be less violent."

He had asked Rosalie for a glass and water-bottle. Half-filling the
glass with water, he took up two fresh medicine phials, and counted
out a number of drops. Helene assisted in raising the child's head,
and the doctor succeeded in pouring a spoonful of the liquid between
the clenched teeth. The white flame of the lamp was leaping up high
and clear, revealing the disorder of the chamber's furnishings.
Helene's garments, thrown on the back of an arm-chair before she
slipped into bed, had now fallen, and were littering the carpet. The
doctor had trodden on her stays, and had picked them up lest he might
again find them in his way. An odor of vervain stole through the room.
The doctor himself went for the basin, and soaked a linen cloth in it,
which he then pressed to Jeanne's temples.

"Oh, madame, you'll take cold!" expostulated Rosalie as she stood
there shivering. "Perhaps the window might be shut? The air is too
raw."

"No, no!" cried Helene; "leave the window open. Should it not be so?"
she appealed to the doctor.

The wind entered in slight puffs, rustling the curtains to and fro;
but she was quite unconscious of it. Yet the shawl had slipped off her
shoulders, and her hair had become unwound, some wanton tresses
sweeping down to her hips. She had left her arms free and uncovered,
that she might be the more ready; she had forgotten all, absorbed
entirely in her love for her child. And on hi