Madame Beck, brought to the spot by vigilance or an inscrutable instinct, pressed so near, she almost thrust herself between me and M. Emanuel.

“Come, Paul!” she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried⁠—

“My heart will break!”

What I felt seemed literal heartbreak; but the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, “Trust me!” lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief⁠—I wept.

“Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass,” said the calm Madame Beck.

To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly⁠—

“ Laissez-moi! ” 247 in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving.

“ Laissez-moi! ” he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke.

“But this will never do,” said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman⁠—