wife, Monsieur Hulot, to
hinder her from disobeying my injunctions."

Adeline and Hortense, when they were left alone, went to sit with
Lisbeth. Hortense had such a virulent hatred of Valerie that she could
not contain the expression of it.

"Cousin Lisbeth," she exclaimed, "my mother and I are avenged! that
venomous snake is herself bitten--she is rotting in her bed!"

"Hortense, at this moment you are not a Christian. You ought to pray
to God to vouchsafe repentance to this wretched woman."

"What are you talking about?" said Betty, rising from her couch. "Are
you speaking of Valerie?"

"Yes," replied Adeline; "she is past hope--dying of some horrible
disease of which the mere description makes one shudder----"

Lisbeth's teeth chattered, a cold sweat broke out all over her; the
violence of the shock showed how passionate her attachment to Valerie
had been.

"I must go there," said she.

"But the doctor forbids your going out."

"I do not care--I must go!--Poor Crevel! what a state he must be in;
for he loves that woman."

"He is dying too," replied Countess Steinbock. "Ah! all our enemies
are in the devil's clutches--"

"In God's hands, my child--"

Lisbeth dressed in the famous yellow Indian shawl and her black velvet
bonnet, and put on her boots; in spite of her relations'
remonstrances, she set out as if driven by some irresistible power.

She arrived in the Rue Barbet a few minutes after Monsieur and Madame
Hulot, and found seven physicians there, brought by Bianchon to study
this unique case; he had just joined them. The physicians, assembled
in the drawing-room, were discussing the disease; now one and now
another went into Valerie's room or Crevel's to take a note, and
returned with an opinion based on this rapid study.

These princes of science were divided in their opinions. One, who
stood alone in his views, considered it a case of poisoning, of
private revenge, and denied its identity with the disease known in the
Middle Ages. Three others regarded it as a specific deterioration of
the blood and the humors. The rest, agreeing with Bianchon, maintained
that the blood was poisoned by some hitherto unknown morbid infection.
Bianchon produced Professor Duval's analysis of the blood. The
remedies to be applied, though absolutely empirical and without hope,
depended on the verdict in this medical dilemma.

Lisbeth stood as if petrified three yards away from the bed where
Valerie lay dying, as