e
without appearing to call upon Phillis. It was easy to say that he was
passing by, and wished to learn news of the patient whom he had cured.

At nine o'clock he knocked at her door.

"Enter," a man's voice said.

He was surprised, for in his visits to Madame Cormier he had never seen
a man there. He crossed the hall and knocked at the dining-room door.
This time it was Phillis who bid him come in.

He opened the door and saw Phillis, in a gray blouse, seated before a
large table placed by the window. She was painting some cards.

Hearing steps, she turned her head and instantly rose, but she
restrained the cry-the name that was on her lips.

"Mamma," she said, "here is Doctor Saniel."

Madame Cormier entered, walking with difficulty; for, if Saniel had put
her on her feet, he had not given her the suppleness or the grace of
youth.

After a few words, Saniel explained that, having to pay a visit to
the Batignolles, he would not come so near his former patient without
calling to see her.

While Madame Cormier told at great length how she felt, and also how
she did not feel, Phillis looked at Saniel, uneasy to see his face so
convulsed. Surely, something very serious had happened; his visit
said this. But what? Her anguish was so much the greater, because he
certainly avoided looking at her. Why? She had done nothing, and could
find nothing with which to reproach herself.

At this moment the door opened, and a man still young, tall, with a
curled beard, entered the room.

"My son," Madame Cormier said.

"My brother Florentin, of whom we have spoken so often," Phillis said.

Florentin! Was he then becoming imbecile, that he had not thought the
voice of the man who bid him enter was that of Phillis's brother? Was he
so profoundly overwhelmed that such a simple reasoning was impossible
to him? Decidedly, it was important for him to go away as quickly as
possible; the journey would calm his nerves.

"They wrote to me," Florentin said, "and since my return they have told
me how good you were to my mother. Permit me to thank you from a touched
and grateful heart. I hope that before long this gratitude will be
something more than a vain word."

"Do not let us speak of that," Saniel said, looking at Phillis with a
frankness and an open countenance that reassured heron a certain
point. "It is I who am obliged to Madame Cormier. If the word were not
barbarous, I should say that her illness has been a good thing