how frightful!" she cried on the threshold. "Why,
you are even worse lodged than our father. Eugene, you have behaved
well. I would love you more if that were possible; but, dear boy, if you
are to succeed in life, you must not begin by flinging twelve thousand
francs out of the windows like that. The Comte de Trailles is a
confirmed gambler. My sister shuts her eyes to it. He would have made
the twelve thousand francs in the same way that he wins and loses heaps
of gold."

A groan from the next room brought them back to Goriot's bedside; to all
appearances he was asleep, but the two lovers caught the words, "They
are not happy!" Whether he was awake or sleeping, the tone in which they
were spoken went to his daughter's heart. She stole up to the pallet-bed
on which her father lay, and kissed his forehead. He opened his eyes.

"Ah! Delphine!" he said.

"How are you now?" she asked.

"Quite comfortable. Do not worry about me; I shall get up presently.
Don't stay with me, children; go, go and be happy."

Eugene went back with Delphine as far as her door; but he was not easy
about Goriot, and would not stay to dinner, as she proposed. He wanted
to be back at the Maison Vauquer. Father Goriot had left his room,
and was just sitting down to dinner as he came in. Bianchon had placed
himself where he could watch the old man carefully; and when the old
vermicelli maker took up his square of bread and smelled it to find out
the quality of the flour, the medical student, studying him closely, saw
that the action was purely mechanical, and shook his head.

"Just come and sit over here, hospitaller of Cochin," said Eugene.

Bianchon went the more willingly because his change of place brought him
next to the old lodger.

"What is wrong with him?" asked Rastignac.

"It is all up with him, or I am much mistaken! Something very
extraordinary must have taken place; he looks to me as if he were
in imminent danger of serous apoplexy. The lower part of his face is
composed enough, but the upper part is drawn and distorted. Then there
is that peculiar look about the eyes that indicates an effusion of serum
in the brain; they look as though they were covered with a film of fine
dust, do you notice? I shall know more about it by to-morrow morning."

"Is there any cure for it?"

"None. It might be possible to stave death off for a time if a way could
be found of setting up a reaction in the lower extremities; but if the
symptoms d