ally a physical change so marked as to unfit her
for all but a narrow domestic life, it is likely that with her fierce
and impatient temper she might have been tempted to end her existence.
As one for whom the quest of happiness was ended as far as a prosperous
marriage and removal from St. Ignace were involved, she now depended on
herself again, and bitterly as she might mourn and lament the
disappointment and chagrin which in a moment had permanently saddened
her future, her grief and mortification would have been bitterer still
could she have foreseen the long nights of half-delirious insomnia, the
days of utter apathy and uselessness which stretched blankly before her.

Later that night, when she had tried to compose herself to sleep but
without success, she called Maman Archambault into the room.

"Give me a light--for the love of God, a light!" she wailed, sitting up
with all her dark hair pouring over the bed. "How dare you leave me
without a light and I so ill!"

"But the doctor said----"

"What do I care what he said! In this room, in the dark, are all sorts
of creatures, I hear them! Henry is here, or his ghost, and the
Poussette woman is here, singing her silly songs, and rats are here,
and cats, and worse things, moving and crawling all over me, in the
walls, everywhere!"

The old woman set the lamp on the table. She was very angry.

"It is not so, mademoiselle. The room was cleaned. Maybe a ghost,
_n'sais pas_. Maybe a cat or two. Yes, there's the white one now
under your bed and her kittens! I'll drive them out."

Miss Clairville sank back and watched. So had her brother lain. So
had the cats lain under the bed during his sickness. Maman Archambault
went out to her _paillasse_ in the hall, the night wore on, but without
sleep for Pauline, and towards morning so intense were her sufferings
that a messenger was sent for Dr. Renaud, who came as requested and was
destined to come again and again for many a weary month.

CHAPTER XXX

THE QUEST OF HAPPINESS

"Ye wish for act and circumstance, that make
The individual known and understood;
And such as my best judgment could select
From what the place afforded, have been given."

The consistency of character or rather the defect of that virtue which
had perhaps caused the aberration under which Ringfield had very nearly
committed a crime without being, as we say, a depraved or vicious
member of society, helped after the me