hen he was near enough to be heard. "Madame la
baronne is very ill."

Jeanne ran quickly towards the house, feeling as if a douche of cold
water had been poured down her spine. There was quite a little crowd
standing under the plane tree, which opened to let her through as she
rushed forward. There, in the midst, lay the baroness on the ground, her
head supported by two pillows, her face black, her eyes closed, and her
chest, which for the last twenty years had heaved so tumultuously,
motionless. The child's nurse was standing there; she took him from his
mother's arms, and carried him away.

"How did it happen? What made her fall?" asked Jeanne, looking up with
haggard eyes. "Send for the doctor immediately."

As she turned she saw the cure; he at once offered his services, and,
turning up his sleeves, began to rub the baroness with Eau de Cologne
and vinegar; but she showed no signs of returning consciousness.

"She ought to be undressed and put to bed," said the priest; and, with
his aid, Joseph Couillard, old Simon and Ludivine tried to raise the
baroness.

As they lifted her, her head fell backwards, and her dress, which they
were grasping, gave way under the dead weight of her huge body. They
were obliged to lay her down again, and Jeanne shrieked with horror.

At last an armchair was brought from the drawing-room; the baroness was
placed in it, carried slowly indoors, then upstairs, and laid on the
bed. The cook was undressing her as best she could when the Widow Dentu
came in, as if, like the priest, she had "smelt death," as the servants
said. Joseph Couillard hurried off for the doctor, and the priest was
going to fetch the holy oil, when the nurse whispered in his ear:

"You needn't trouble to go, Monsieur le cure. I have seen too much of
death not to know that she is gone."

Jeanne, in desperation, begged them to tell her what she could do, what
remedies they had better apply. The cure thought that anyhow he might
pronounce an absolution, and for two hours they watched beside the
lifeless, livid body, Jeanne, unable to contain her grief, sobbing aloud
as she knelt beside the bed. When the door opened to admit the doctor,
she thought that with him came safety and consolation and hope, and she
rushed to meet him, trying to tell him, in a voice broken with sobs, all
the details of the catastrophe.

"She was walking--like she does every day--and she seemed quite well,
better even--than usual. She had e