"Ah!"
There was something tragic in the gesture with which he indicated the thick case full of books, forming with the two walls a little triangular space; then in the manner in which he intertwined his fingers:
"She was there! And—she heard! Ah!"
He stood for a moment as if rooted to the floor; he bit his lip; there were quivers on his cheeks and wrinkles on his forehead; then he approached Miss Mary, and asked in such a low voice that she barely heard him:
"Did she do this purposely—purposely? Purposely?"
"With clasped hands she said in a very low voice:
"I cannot hide—maybe something will depend on this—she did it purposely."
Then that man, usually calm and regular in all his movements, rushed to the door of the antechamber with the spring of a tiger.
"Carriage!" cried he.
"When the most famous doctor in the city came out of the sick girl's chamber that day for the second time, Darvid met him in the blue drawing-room, alone. He was as usual self-possessed, and with a pleasing smile in the presence of that man with a great name.