"Do you think it is all true?"

"I don't know what to think; but one of the maids, who tells me the truth
as a rule, assured me that she had become mad through her courses being
stopped, while she has also a fever and violent convulsions. It is all
credible enough, for these are the usual results of a shock when a woman
is in such a situation. The girl told me it was all your fault."

I then told him the whole story. He could only pity me, but when he heard
that I had neither eaten nor slept for the last forty-eight hours he said
very wisely that if I did not take care I should lose my reason or my
life. I knew it, but I could find no remedy. He spent the day with me and
did me good. As I could not eat I drank a good deal, and not being able
to sleep I spent the night in striding up and down my room like a man
beside himself.

On the third day, having heard nothing positive about the Charpillon, I
went out at seven o'clock in the morning to call on her. After I had
waited a quarter of an hour in the street, the door was partly opened,
and I saw the mother all in tears, but she would not let me come in. She
said her daughter was in the last agony. At the same instant a pale and
thin old man came out, telling the mother that we must resign ourselves
to the will of God. I asked the infamous creature if it were the doctor.

"The doctor is no good now," said the old hypocrite, weeping anew, "he is
a minister of the Gospel, and there is another of them upstairs. My poor
daughter! In another hour she will be no more."

I felt as if an icy hand had closed upon my heart. I burst into tears and
left the woman, saying,--