ur," replied the young woman. "Do you think
that a daughter's duty is less binding than a doctor's?"

"Madame, a physician knows how to protect himself against infection,
and the rashness of your devotion proves to me that you would probably
be less prudent than I."

Celestine, however, got up and went to her room, where she dressed to
go out.

"Monsieur," said Victorin to Bianchon, "have you any hope of saving
Monsieur and Madame Crevel?"

"I hope, but I do not believe that I may," said Bianchon. "The case is
to me quite inexplicable. The disease is peculiar to negroes and the
American tribes, whose skin is differently constituted to that of the
white races. Now I can trace no connection with the copper-colored
tribes, with negroes or half-castes, in Monsieur or Madame Crevel.

"And though it is a very interesting disease to us, it is a terrible
thing for the sufferers. The poor woman, who is said to have been very
pretty, is punished for her sins, for she is now squalidly hideous if
she is still anything at all. She is losing her hair and teeth, her
skin is like a leper's, she is a horror to herself; her hands are
horrible, covered with greenish pustules, her nails are loose, and the
flesh is eaten away by the poisoned humors."

"And the cause of such a disease?" asked the lawyer.

"Oh!" said the doctor, "the cause lies in a form of rapid
blood-poisoning; it degenerates with terrific rapidity. I hope to act
on the blood; I am having it analyzed; and I am now going home to
ascertain the result of the labors of my friend Professor Duval, the
famous chemist, with a view to trying one of those desperate measures
by which we sometimes attempt to defeat death."

"The hand of God is there!" said Adeline, in a voice husky with
emotion. "Though that woman has brought sorrows on me which have led
me in moments of madness to invoke the vengeance of Heaven, I hope
--God knows I hope--you may succeed, doctor."

Victorin felt dizzy. He looked at his mother, his sister, and the
physician by turns, quaking lest they should read his thoughts. He
felt himself a murderer.

Hortense, for her part, thought God was just.

Celestine came back to beg her husband to accompany her.

"If you insist on going, madame, and you too, monsieur, keep at least
a foot between you and the bed of the sufferer, that is the chief
precaution. Neither you nor your wife must dream of kissing the dying
man. And, indeed, you ought to go with your