to get away from her patient, but Mme. Rambert held her
back, almost by force.

"Tell me your price," she said. "How much do you want? A thousand
pounds? Two thousand pounds?" and as the attendant, bewildered by the
mere suggestion of such fabulous sums, was silent, Mme. Rambert slipped
a diamond ring off her finger and held it out to the young woman. "Take
that as proof of my sincerity," she said. "If anybody asks me about it I
will say that I have lost it. And from now, Berthe, begin to prepare a
way for me to escape! The very night that I am free I swear you shall be
a rich woman!"

Berthe got up, swaying, hardly knowing if she was awake or dreaming.

"A rich woman!" she murmured. "A rich woman!" and over the girl's face
there suddenly crept a horrible expression of cupidity and desire.

XVI. AMONG THE MARKET PORTERS

"Boulevard Rochechouart," said Berthe, the young asylum nurse, to the
conductor as she sprang into the tram just as it was starting.

It was a September afternoon, one of the last fine days of the now
fast-dying summer, and the girl had just got her fortnightly leave for
forty-eight hours. She had gone off duty at noon, and now had until noon
on the next day but one to resume her own personality and shake off the
anxieties that beset all those who are charged with the constant care of
the insane, the most distressing kind of patients that exists. As a
general rule Berthe spent her fortnightly holidays with her old
grand-parents in their cottage outside Paris, but on this occasion she
had elected to remain in the city, influenced thereto by the long
conversation she had had with the patient confided to her particular
care, No. 25, Mme. Rambert. Since that first talk with her, on the day
of Professor Swelding's visit to the asylum, she had had others, and
Berthe had now elaborated a plan to enable the supposed lunatic to
escape, and had decided to spend her short holiday in bringing the plan
to a point.

At the boulevard Rochechouart Berthe got out of the tram, looked around
to get her bearings in the somewhat unfamiliar neighbourhood, and then
turned into the rue Clignancourt and stood on the left-hand side of the
street, looking at the shops. The third one was a wine shop, only the
first of many in the street.

Berthe pushed the door of this establishment a little way open and
looked at the rather rowdy company gathered round the zinc counter, all
with flushed faces and all talking lou