“Nurse Rollet,” she said on reaching the nurse’s, “I am choking; unlace me!” She fell on the bed sobbing. Nurse Rollet covered her with a petticoat and remained standing by her side. Then, as she did not answer, the good woman withdrew, took her wheel and began spinning flax.

“Oh, leave off!” she murmured, fancying she heard Binet’s lathe.

“What’s bothering her?” said the nurse to herself. “Why has she come here?”

She had rushed thither; impelled by a kind of horror that drove her from her home.