"Let everything alone. I will pay whatever is necessary."

"Very good, sir; if you answer for it, that's all right."

"And now I want a physician," he added.

"A physician! Oh, that is nonsense. You must not be taken in in this way. She goes out every evening for her daughter, who is apprenticed to a milliner, and this time she took a drop too much, that is all!"

A bitter sob was heard from the girl, who sat with her hands covering her face.

Sanselme pitied the poor child. He took a twenty franc piece from his pocket.

"I want a doctor," he said, "and pray make haste."

"Very good, sir, since I see you are willing to pay him, and that it won't be left for me to do."

Sanselme was left alone with these two women. He was greatly annoyed that accident had brought him to such a house, and was half tempted to fly. He had done his duty and had defended the two women from their a.s.sailants. What more had he to do here?

The merest trifle would compromise his position, for Lyons, though a large city, is but a village; every trifle becomes known, and is commented upon and exaggerated.

He stood twisting his hat in his hands. Presently, with an air of decision, he tossed it on a chair.

"It won't do to be cowardly!" he said, half aloud.

This man, who had been so vicious, was now eager to do good. He must see the physician. But could he do nothing while awaiting his arrival?

Whatever were the errors of this poor creature, she was a woman, and suffering. He did not know what she required. He turned to the girl.

"Mademoiselle!" he said, making his voice as gentle and paternal as possible.

She looked up, and for the first time he saw her. She was absolutely adorable, with her glossy, dark hair carried back plainly from her fair brow. How old was she? Sixteen, perhaps, but so slender that she looked younger.

"You must unfasten your mother's dress," said Sanselme, "that she may have air."

The girl looked at him as if she did not understand him. Oh! what shame and humiliation were in that young heart!

Sanselme understood, for he said:

"She is your mother, I believe?"

She rose quickly and went to the bed, and leaning over the woman, kissed her brow. This was her answer to Sanselme's question. She then loosened the sick woman's garments. Feeling her child's hands, and able to breathe better, the woman said:

"Do not touch me; I am in agony!"

That was the beginning of delirium.

"I am cold!" she cried. "Why do you put ice on my feet?" and she started up so suddenly that her daughter could not hold her.

"Help me, sir," the girl cried to Sanselme.

He ran to her a.s.sistance. He was astonished to see that the woman was not more than thirty-five, but her eyes were haggard, and she bore the marks of precocious old age.

She uttered a shriek so wild and despairing that it curdled the blood in Sanselme's veins, and as he looked her full in the face, he trembled from head to foot.

The doors opened; it was the physician, who looked utterly disgusted that he should have been called to such a place. He entered noisily, without removing his hat, and as he caught sight of the sick woman, looking like an inspired Pythoness, he said roughly:

"Come, now, lie down."

She looked at him with evident terror, and then, docile as a child, she lay down on the bed.

The physician made a rapid examination.

"There is nothing to be done," he said; "this woman is at the end of her rope."

"For Heaven's sake, sir, be quiet!" whispered Sanselme, angrily. "The woman hears you, and you will kill her!"

The Doctor took off his spectacles and closed them with a snap; then looking at Sanselme from head to foot, he said:

"You are much interested in Madame. A relative, I presume?"

"That is none of your affairs, sir. I beg you to confine yourself to writing your prescriptions, and I will see that you are paid."

The physician was impressed by the tone in which these words were uttered. He wrote the prescription and went away. Then Sanselme said he would go for the medicine. He was absolutely livid and could hardly stand. He returned in twenty minutes, and met the mistress of the house on the street, where she was waiting.

"Look here!" she said; "I don't like all this in my house, and I am going to bundle Zelda off to the Hospital. I don't want her to die here."

Sanselme hardly heard her.

"Tell me," he said, hastily, "what this woman's name is."

"That is easy enough; I have her papers. It is something like Zeld, and we have got to calling her Zelda--it is more taking, you know."

"Yes, I see; but do you know anything of her past?"

"Not much."

"She has a daughter?"

"Yes, which is not at all pleasant for us. Of course, the child can't live here; she stays across the street. Zelda goes every night to the shop for her. It is nonsense, of course, for she will go the same way as her mother in the end."

"Will you show me the papers?" asked Sanselme, "and I will do all I can for this woman."

"Help me to get rid of her! That is all I ask."

"Rely on me."

Sanselme presently had the papers in his hands. The sick woman's name was Jane Zeld. She came from a little village in Switzerland, near Zurich. There was also a paper dated many years since, signed by her father, authorizing her to reside in the Commune of Selzheim, in Alsace.

Sanselme turned sick and dizzy; he caught at the wall for support.

"What on earth is the matter?" asked the old woman.