is anxiety increasing, bethought
himself of trying to find Beauchene in order that the latter might, at
least, be present if his wife should die. But the old servant, on being
questioned, began by raising her arms to heaven. She did not know where
Monsieur might be, Monsieur never left any address. At last, feeling
frightened herself, she made up her mind to hasten to the abode of the
two women, aunt and niece, with whom Beauchene spent the greater part
of his time. She knew their address perfectly well, as her mistress had
even sent her thither in pressing emergencies. But she learnt that the
ladies had gone with Monsieur to Nice for a holiday; whereupon, not
desiring to return without some member of the family, she was seized
on her way back with the fine idea of calling on Monsieur's sister, the
Baroness de Lowicz, whom she brought, almost by force, in her cab.

It was in vain that Boutan attempted treatment. When Constance opened
her eyes again, she looked at him fixedly, recognized him, no doubt, and
then lowered her eyelids. And from that moment she obstinately refused
to reply to any question that was put to her. She must have heard and
have known that people were there, trying to succor her. But she would
have none of their succor, she was stubbornly intent on dying, on giving
no further sign of life. Neither did she raise her eyelids, nor did her
lips part again. It was as if she had already quitted the world amid the
mute agony of her defeat.

That evening Seraphine's manner was extremely strange. She reeked
of ether, for she drank ether now. When she heard of the two-fold
"accident," the death of Morange and that of Alexandre, which had
brought on Constance's cardiacal attack, she simply gave an insane grin,
a kind of involuntary snigger, and stammered: "Ah! that's funny."

Though she removed neither her hat nor her gloves, she installed herself
in an armchair, where she sat waiting, with her eyes wide open and
staring straight before her--those brown eyes flecked with gold, whose
living light was all that she had retained of her massacred beauty. At
sixty-two she looked like a centenarian; her bold, insolent face was
ravined, as it were, by her stormy life, and the glow of her sun-like
hair had been extinguished by a shower of ashes. And time went on,
midnight approached, and she was still there, near that death-bed of
which she seemed to be ignorant, in that quivering chamber where she
forgot herself, sim