vomiting began
again.

Charles noticed that at the bottom of the basin there was a sort of
white sediment sticking to the sides of the porcelain.

"This is extraordinary--very singular," he repeated.

But she said in a firm voice, "No, you are mistaken."

Then gently, and almost as caressing her, he passed his hand over her
stomach. She uttered a sharp cry. He fell back terror-stricken.

Then she began to groan, faintly at first. Her shoulders were shaken by
a strong shuddering, and she was growing paler than the sheets in which
her clenched fingers buried themselves. Her unequal pulse was now almost
imperceptible.

Drops of sweat oozed from her bluish face, that seemed as if rigid in
the exhalations of a metallic vapour. Her teeth chattered, her dilated
eyes looked vaguely about her, and to all questions she replied only
with a shake of the head; she even smiled once or twice. Gradually, her
moaning grew louder; a hollow shriek burst from her; she pretended she
was better and that she would get up presently. But she was seized with
convulsions and cried out--

"Ah! my God! It is horrible!"

He threw himself on his knees by her bed.

"Tell me! what have you eaten? Answer, for heaven's sake!"

And he looked at her with a tenderness in his eyes such as she had never
seen.

"Well, there--there!" she said in a faint voice. He flew to the
writing-table, tore open the seal, and read aloud: "Accuse no one." He
stopped, passed his hands across his eyes, and read it over again.

"What! help--help!"

He could only keep repeating the word: "Poisoned! poisoned!" Felicite
ran to Homais, who proclaimed it in the market-place; Madame Lefrancois
heard it at the "Lion d'Or"; some got up to go and tell their
neighbours, and all night the village was on the alert.

Distraught, faltering, reeling, Charles wandered about the room. He
knocked against the furniture, tore his hair, and the chemist had never
believed that there could be so terrible a sight.

He went home to write to Monsieur Canivet and to Doctor Lariviere. He
lost his head, and made more than fifteen rough copies. Hippolyte went
to Neufchatel, and Justin so spurred Bovary's horse that he left it
foundered and three parts dead by the hill at Bois-Guillaume.

Charles tried to look up his medical dictionary, but could not read it;
the lines were dancing.

"Be calm," said the druggist; "we have only to administer a powerful
antidote. What is the poison?"