Seingalt, there's Seingalt! He's going to kill me. Help! help!"
"For God's sake, sir, go away!"

I went home desperate, without the slightest suspicion that it was all a
lie. I spent the whole day without eating anything; I could not swallow a
mouthful. All night I kept awake, and though I took several glasses of
strong waters I could obtain no rest.

At nine o'clock the next morning I knocked at the Charpillon's door, and
the old aunt came and held it half open as before. She forbade me to
enter, saying that her niece was still delirious, continually calling on
me in her transports, and that the doctor had declared that if the
disease continued its course she had not twenty-four hours to live. "The
fright you gave her has arrested her periods; she is in a terrible
state."

"O, fatal hairdresser!" I exclaimed.

"That was a mere youthful folly; you should have pretended not to have
seen anything."

"You think that possible, you old witch, do you? Do not let her lack for
anything; take that."

With these words I gave her a bank note for ten guineas and went away,
like the fool I was. On my way back I met Goudar, who was quite
frightened at my aspect. I begged him to go and see how the Charpillon
really was, and then to come and pass the rest of the day with me. An
hour after he came back and said he had found them all in tears and that
the girl was in extremis.

"Did you see her?"

"No, they said she could see no one."

"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 h