ith anguish fixed on the
Professor and hand pointing to him, trembling in every limb.

"Fantomas!" she cried: "Fantomas! There--I know him! Oh, help!"

The scene was horribly distressing, and Dr. Biron put an end to it by
ordering the attendant to take Mme. Rambert to her room and induce her
to rest, and to send at once for M. Perret. Then he turned to Professor
Swelding.

"I am greatly distressed by this incident, Professor. It proves that the
cure of this poor creature is by no means so assured as I had believed.
But there are other cases which will not shake your faith in my judgment
like this, I hope. Shall we go on?"

Professor Swelding tried to comfort the doctor.

"The brain is a pathetically frail thing," he said. "You could not have
a more striking case to prove it: that poor lady, whom you believed to
be cured, suddenly having a typical crisis of her form of insanity
provoked by--what? Neither you nor I look particularly like assassins,
do we?" And he followed Dr. Biron, who was much discomfited, to be shown
other matters of interest.

* * * * *

"Better now, madame? Are you going to be good?"

Mme. Rambert was reclining on a sofa in her room, watching her
attendant, Berthe, moving about and tidying up the slight disorder
caused by her recent ministrations. The patient made a little gesture of
despair.

"Poor Berthe!" she said. "If you only knew how unhappy I am, and how
sorry for having given way to that panic just now!"

"Oh, that was nothing," said the attendant. "The doctor won't attach any
importance to that."

"Yes, he will," said the patient with a weary smile. "I think he will
attach importance to it, and in any case it will delay my discharge from
this place."

"Not a bit of it, madame. Why, you know they have written to your home
to say you are cured?"

Mme. Rambert did not reply for a minute or two. Then she said:

"Tell me, Berthe, what do you understand by the word 'cured'?"

The attendant was rather nonplussed.

"Why, it means that you are better: that you are quite well."

Her patient smiled bitterly.

"It is true that my health is better now, and that my stay here has done
me good. But that is not what I was talking about. What is your opinion
about my madness?"

"You mustn't think about that," the attendant remonstrated. "You are no
more mad than I am."

"Oh, I know the worst symptom of madness is to declare you are not mad,"
Mme. Rambe