und herself upon
the pavement, with a ringing in her ears and her mind distracted.
However, she quickly ran down the Rue Vineuse and pulled the door-bell
of Doctor Bodin, who had already tended Jeanne; but a servant--after
an interval which seemed an eternity--informed her that the doctor was
attending a woman in childbed. Helene remained stupefied on the
footway; she knew no other doctor in Passy. For a few moments she
rushed about the streets, gazing at the houses. A slight but keen wind
was blowing, and she was walking in slippers through the light snow
that had fallen during the evening. Ever before her was her daughter,
with the agonizing thought that she was killing her by not finding a
doctor at once. Then, as she retraced her steps along the Rue Vineuse,
she rang the bell of another house. She would inquire, at all events;
some one would perhaps direct her. She gave a second tug at the bell;
but no one seemed to come. The wind meanwhile played with her
petticoat, making it cling to her legs, and tossed her dishevelled
hair.

At last a servant answered her summons. "Doctor Deberle was in bed
asleep." It was a doctor's house at which she had rung, so Heaven had
not abandoned her! Straightway, intent upon entering, she pushed the
servant aside, still repeating her prayer:

"My child, my child is dying! Oh, tell him he must come!"

The house was small and seemed full of hangings. She reached the first
floor, despite the servant's opposition, always answering his protest
with the words, "My child is dying!" In the apartment she entered she
would have been content to wait; but the moment she heard the doctor
stirring in the next room she drew near and appealed to him through
the doorway:

"Oh, sir, come at once, I beseech you. My child is dying!"

When the doctor at last appeared in a short coat and without a
neckcloth, she dragged him away without allowing him to finish
dressing. He at once recognized her as a resident in the next-door
house, and one of his own tenants; so when he induced her to cross a
garden--to shorten the way by using a side-door between the two houses
--memory suddenly awoke within her.

"True, you are a doctor!" she murmured, "and I knew it. But I was
distracted. Oh, let us hurry!"

On the staircase she wished him to go first. She could not have
admitted the Divinity to her home in a more reverent manner. Upstairs
Rosalie had remained near the child, and had lit the large lamp on the