e Doctor
blamed the weather, which was cold and boisterous. He called in his
_confrere_ from Bourron, took a fancy for him, magnified his capacity,
and was pretty soon under treatment himself--it scarcely appeared for
what complaint. He and Jean-Marie had each medicine to take at different
periods of the day. The Doctor used to lie in wait for the exact moment,
watch in hand. "There is nothing like regularity," he would say, fill out
the doses, and dilate on the virtues of the draught; and if the boy
seemed none the better, the Doctor was not at all the worse.

Gunpowder Day, the boy was particularly low. It was scowling, squally
weather. Huge broken companies of cloud sailed swiftly overhead; raking
gleams of sunlight swept the village, and were followed by intervals of
darkness and white, flying rain. At times the wind lifted up its voice
and bellowed. The trees were all scourging themselves along the meadows,
the last leaves flying like dust.

The Doctor, between the boy and the weather, was in his element; he had a
theory to prove. He sat with his watch out and a barometer in front of
him, waiting for the squalls and noting their effect upon the human
pulse. "For the true philosopher," he remarked delightedly, "every fact
in nature is a toy." A letter came to him; but, as its arrival coincided
with the approach of another gust, he merely crammed it into his pocket,
gave the time to Jean-Marie, and the next moment they were both counting
their pulses as if for a wager.

At nightfall the wind rose into a tempest. It besieged the hamlet,
apparently from every side, as if with batteries of cannon; the houses
shook and groaned; live coals were blown upon the floor. The uproar and
terror of the night kept people long awake, sitting with pallid faces
giving ear.

It was twelve before the Desprez family retired. By half-past one, when
the storm was already somewhat past its height, the Doctor was awakened
from a troubled slumber, and sat up. A noise still rang in his ears, but
whether of this world or the world of dreams he was not certain. Another
clap of wind followed. It was accompanied by a sickening movement of the
whole house, and in the subsequent lull Desprez could hear the tiles
pouring like a cataract into the loft above his head. He plucked
Anastasie bodily out of bed.

"Run!" he cried, thrusting some wearing apparel into her hands; "the
house is falling! To the garden!"

She did not pause to be twice bidd