e was
extremely taken with the delicate and amusing girl, and with her
charming person, the wretch sent her to sleep with a few magnetic
passes, and outraged her.

She awoke without being conscious of what had happened, and only felt
rather more listless than usual, like she used to do when there was
thunder in the air. From that time, the doctor put longer intervals
between her visits, and soon, after having prescribed insignificant
remedies for her, he told her that she was quite cured, and that there
was no occasion for her to come and see him any more. Two months passed,
and the girl, who at first had seemed much better and more lively,
relapsed into a state of prostration which had so alarmed them, dragged
herself about more than she walked, and seemed to be succumbing under
some heavy burden.

As they had not paid the old doctor's bill, and as they were afraid that
he would ask them for it if they went to see him again, her father took
the girl to Beaujon, and they thought that he should have gone mad with
despair and shame when one of the house-surgeons, without mincing his
words, told them in a chaffing manner, that she was in the family way.

_In the family way!_ What did he mean by that? And by whom?

They were small, thoroughly respectable and upright shopkeepers, and
this made them cruel. They tormented the poor girl, to make her
acknowledge her fault and tell them the name of her seducer. It was of
no use for her to bemoan herself, to throw herself at their feet, to
tear her hair in desperation, and to swear that no man in the world had
ever touched her lips; in vain, did she exclaim indignantly that it was
impossible that such a dreadful thing could be; that the man had made a
mistake or was joking with them. In vain, did she try to calm them, and
to soften them by her entreaties; they turned away their heads, and had
only one reply to make:

"His name, his name!"

When she saw that her figure was altering, she was at length undeceived,
and became like an imprisoned animal, did not speak and cowered
motionless in the darkest corners, and did not even rebel at the blows,
which marked her pale, passive face. She carefully thought over every
minute in the past few months, and did her utmost to fill up the voids
in her memory, and at last she guessed who the guilty person was.

Then, in despair, she scribbled on a scrap of paper:

"I swear to you, my dear parents, that I have nothing to reproach mysel