Dupuy's expressions. Harder words, harsher
accusations, still poured like drops of fire on
that bewildered head, till Marie seemed to
be translated to another lite; she knew so
little what it all meant. Monsieur Dupuy
endeavoured to shield her. But he was swept
away like a reed in a torrent before his wife's
strength of wrath. He was but a "miserable"
and a "coward," and was too mean to
be dealt with. It was only Marie who was
to blame—after the mother's tenderness
lavished on her!

Marie bore up for a short time. She hoped
that the fit of passion would be exhausted
next day, and that then Madame Dupuy
would acknowledge herself in the wrong, and
reinstate her in her love. But the next day
came, and Madame Dupuy had not the
smallest inclination to own herself in fault.
She was as furious against Marie as ever,
and threatened to send her to a convent—a
threat she might have carried into execution
if she liked; for Marie never seemed to
imagine that Madame Dupuy had not her
life, and death, and social disposition, all in her
hand.

After many days of this agitation Marie
began to feel very ill. She had a fearful
headache, she lost her appetite, and could not
sleep. Neither could she rest; but wandered
about, feverish and distracted, more dead than
alive. In about ten days she fell ill of a fever
which an English doctor would have called a
brain fever; but the Frenchman said it was
an overturning of the blood with typhoid
symptoms.

Madame Dupuy had certainly several
children: and fever, with typhoid symptoms,
in a house where there are several infants, is
no light matter. Yet four years ago Marie had
nursed Madame herself through the smallpox,
and her children through the measles,
and had taken all the danger and trouble to
herself, suffering no one to help her. For
infants and invalids were Marie's specialities.
She had, therefore, a claim upon Madame
Dupuy now, in this her first illness, and an
illness brought on by her injustice. For
Madame Dupuy knew that Marie was innocent
in all that concerned her husband; and
that the Count himself had meant nothing
but the folly of a vain man who wishes to
possess exclusive influence, where he feels he
has most affection. She was obliged to
acknowledge to herself that it was but a
pretext, and a cruel one, that she had made
use of to disembarrass herself of Marie without
the possibility of any blame attaching to
herself, and with the delightful opportunity
of administering a little revenge upon her
husband. Therefore Madame made Marie's
sickness a great point in reference to her
children; talked sweetly of maternal obligations
and unavailing regrets; and insisted on
Marie being sent away immediately, wherever
she might be best taken care of.

Fevered and delirious, Marie was wrapped
up in a blanket, put into a carriage, and sent
off to Paris, to live or die in a hotel in the
Rue Saint Honoré, as it might happen. And
there she was alone, without a relation in
the whole world of Paris, and without an
intimate friend; for she had been so long
with Madame Dupuy, and had so gathered
her life into that one focus, that she had
lost all connexion with the outlying world
beyond the château; and in the very Quatier
in which she had been brought up
from infancy, was as much alone in all that
regarded the obligations of intimate friendship
as if she had been in Siberia.

When the people at the hotel understood
that the young girl's fever had a typhoid
character, they also took the alarm, as was
very natural. They gave her notice to leave,
instantly. When asked where she was to be
taken to, they said, to the Hospice Beaujon;
and, indeed, there seemed to be no other place
for the poor child, than the hospital, among
the chiffoniers and "brigands."

It fortunately happened, that at this critical
time, the apartments in which Marie had
lived with her father and sister and which
the sisters still preserved, were vacated by the
tenants to whom they had sub-let them. So
Marie was carried there, and a nurse and a
doctor were sent for. The proprietor of the
house took that on himself and paid the
hotel bill too; but he put it down in his
quarterly account, " because," he said, "young
ladies should never accept presents from
men." Marie had, however, some money—
the balance of salary which Madame Dupuy
had paid her.

And this was the little heretic sick unto
death, for whom masses and prayers were so
diligently said by the kind-hearted Catholics
of the Quartier; the Curé saying one on his
own account without being paid for it.

The sick nurse, the Sister Sainte Agathe, was
nothing like the popular ideal of a Sister of
Charity. She was old and cross, and an inveterate
gossip. She was expensive and troublesome
too in her habits: requiring very high
living, and extreme punctuality—a thing
almost impossible in such a small household,
and with a patient so dangerously ill. And
then she was obliged to leave Marie also, for
two hours every day, for her religious exercises.
Her wages were higher than the
wages of unvowed nurses; being six, instead of
five francs a day. But it was thought more
proper, more convenable, that a young lady
like Marie should have a Sister as a sick
nurse. And les convenances are the altars of
French society; commanding martyrs as well
as worshippers.

M. Adolphe, the doctor with a thick
brown beard and moustache, soon took a
great interest in Marie— as indeed, who
would not? — in all her delirious distress, such
a dear, good, loving child! And as his interest
in his patient increased, his disapprobation
of her nurse increased with it. He