"Do you know of any members of your family that have suffered from
nervous affections?"

"I don't know. My mother was carried off by consumption."

Here shame made her pause. She could not confess that she had a
grandmother who was an inmate of a lunatic asylum.[*] There was
something tragic connected with all her ancestry.

[*] This is Adelaide Fouque, otherwise Aunt Dide, the ancestress of
the Rougon-Macquart family, whose early career is related in the
"Fortune of the Rougons," whilst her death is graphically
described in the pages of "Dr. Pascal."

"Take care! the convulsions are coming on again!" now hastily
exclaimed the doctor.

Jeanne had just opened her eyes, and for a moment she gazed around her
with a vacant look, never speaking a word. Her glance then grew fixed,
her body was violently thrown backwards, and her limbs became
distended and rigid. Her skin, fiery-red, all at once turned livid.
Her pallor was the pallor of death; the convulsions began once more.

"Do not loose your hold of her," said the doctor. "Take her other
hand!"

He ran to the table, where, on entering, he had placed a small
medicine-case. He came back with a bottle, the contents of which he
made Jeanne inhale; but the effect was like that of a terrible lash;