t condition? But she
was not here yesterday; I did not see her; she was not here--"

"She was," answered Miss Mary; "she said that she was going to
you; she did not return for more than an hour."

"She might have been with her mother?"

"No; I asked her sister about that. She was not with her mother;
she was here."

Darvid was astonished; he thought a while, and called suddenly:

"Ah!"

There was something tragic in the gesture with which he indicated
the thick case full of books, forming with the two walls a little
triangular space; then in the manner in which he intertwined his
fingers:

"She was there! And--she heard! Ah!"

He stood for a moment as if rooted to the floor; he bit his lip;
there were quivers on his cheeks and wrinkles on his forehead;
then he approached Miss Mary, and asked in such a low voice that
she barely heard him:

"Did she do this purposely--purposely? Purposely?"

"With clasped hands she said in a very low voice:

"I cannot hide--maybe something will depend on this--she did it
purposely."

Then that man, usually calm and regular in all his movements,
rushed to the door of the antechamber with the spring of a tiger.

"Carriage!" cried he.

"When the most famous doctor in the city came out of the sick
girl's chamber that day for the second time, Darvid met him in
the blue drawing-room, alone. He was as usual self-possessed, and
with a pleasing smile in the presence of that man with a great
name.

"Is the disease defined?" asked he.

It was defined, and very serious. Inflammation had seized the
greater part of the lungs, and was working fiercely on an
organism weakened by a previous attack. Besides, some kind of
complication had supervened, something coming from the brain,
from the nerves, something psychic.

Darvid mentioned a consultation.

"We may summon from abroad--from Paris, from Vienna; we have
telegraphs and railroads at our service--as to expense--"
concluded he with indifference "--as to expense, I shall not
spare it. My whole fortune is at the disposal of--"

He fixed in the eyes of the doctor a look in which was the desire
for a silent understanding.

"This is no hyperbole, or figure of rhetoric. I am ready to
summon half medical Europe, and spend half my fortune."

There was a quiver on his temples, around his mouth, and near his
eyes, but he smiled. The doctor smiled also.

"My dear sir," said he, "the case is not so peculiar as to need
presentation