A long while afterward, she learned through Victor's captain, the
circumstances which surrounded his death. At the hospital they had bled
him too much, treating him for yellow fever. Four doctors held him at
one time. He died almost instantly, and the chief surgeon had said:

"Here goes another one!"

His parents had always treated him barbarously; she preferred not to see
them again, and they made no advances, either from forgetfulness or out
of innate hardness.

Virginia was growing weaker.

A cough, continual fever, oppressive breathing and spots on her cheeks
indicated some serious trouble. Monsieur Popart had advised a sojourn in
Provence. Madame Aubain decided that they would go, and she would have
had her daughter come home at once, had it not been for the climate of
Pont-l'Eveque.

She made an arrangement with a livery-stable man who drove her over to
the convent every Tuesday. In the garden there was a terrace, from which
the view extends to the Seine. Virginia walked in it, leaning on her
mother's arm and treading the dead vine leaves. Sometimes the sun,
shining through the clouds, made her blink her lids, when she gazed at
the sails in the distance, and let her eyes roam over the horizon from
the chateau of Tancarville to the lighthouses of Havre. Then they rested
on the arbour. Her mother had bought a little cask of fine Malaga wine,
and Virginia, laughing at the idea of becoming intoxicated, would drink
a few drops of it, but never more.