the child gave such a violent jerk that she slipped from her mother's
hands.

"No, no, don't give her ether," exclaimed Helene, warned by the odor.
"It drives her mad."

The two had now scarcely strength enough to keep the child under
control. Her frame was racked and distorted, raised by the heels and
the nape of the neck, as if bent in two. But she fell back again and
began tossing from one side of the bed to the other. Her fists were
clenched, her thumbs bent against the palms of her hands. At times she
would open the latter, and, with fingers wide apart, grasp at phantom
bodies in the air, as though to twist them. She touched her mother's
shawl and fiercely clung to it. But Helene's greatest grief was that
she no longer recognized her daughter. The suffering angel, whose face
was usually so sweet, was transformed in every feature, while her eyes
swam, showing balls of a nacreous blue.

"Oh, do something, I implore you!" she murmured. "My strength is
exhausted, sir."

She had just 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