consumption is not hereditary, but only that consumptive parents
transmit to their children a degenerate soil, in which the disease
develops at the slightest contagion. Now, Valentin, who lived in daily
contact with his father, is consumptive, while Sophie, who grew up in
the open air, has superb health."

He added with a triumphant smile:

"But that will not prevent me, perhaps, from saving Valentin, for he
is visibly improved, and is growing fat since I have used my
injections with him. Ah, Ramond, you will come to them yet; you will
come to my injections!"

The young physician shook hands with both of them, saying:

"I don't say no. You know that I am always with you."

When they were alone they quickened their steps and were soon in the
Rue Canquoin, one of the narrowest and darkest streets of the old
quarter. Hot as was the sun, there reigned here the semi-obscurity and
the coolness of a cave. Here it was, on a ground floor, that Guiraude
lived with her son Valentin. She opened the door herself. She was a
thin, wasted-looking woman, who was herself affected with a slow
decomposition of the blood. From morning till night she crushed
almonds with the end of an ox-bone on a large paving stone, which she
held between her knees. This work was their only means of living, the
son having been obliged to give up all labor. She smiled, however,
to-day on seeing the doctor, for Valentin had just eaten a cutlet with
a good appetite, a thing which he had not done for months. Valentin, a
sickly-looking young man, with scanty hair and beard and prominent