One morning toward the end of October, a month after Clotilde’s departure, Pascal had a sudden attack of suffocation. He had had, several times already, slight attacks, which he attributed to overwork. But this time the symptoms were so plain that he could not mistake them—a sharp pain in the region of the heart, extending over the whole chest and along the left arm, and a dreadful sensation of oppression and distress, while cold perspiration broke out upon him. It was an attack of angina pectoris. It lasted hardly more than a minute, and he was at first more surprised than frightened. With that blindness which physicians often show where their own health is concerned, he never suspected that his heart might be affected.
As he was recovering his breath Martine came up to say that Dr. Ramond was downstairs, and again begged the doctor to see him. And Pascal, yielding perhaps to an unconscious desire to know the truth, cried:
“Well, let him come up, since he insists upon it. I will be glad to see him.”
The two men embraced each other, and no other allusion was made to the absent one, to her whose departure had left the house empty, than an energetic and sad hand clasp.
“You don’t know why I have come?” cried Ramond immediately. “It is about a question of money. Yes, my father-in-law, M. Leveque, the advocate, whom you know, spoke to me yesterday again about the funds which you had with the notary Grandguillot. And he advises you strongly to take some action in the matter, for some persons have succeeded, he says, in recovering something.”
“Yes, I know that that business is being settled,” said Pascal. “Martine has already got two hundred francs out of it, I believe.”
“Martine?” said Ramond, looking greatly surprised, “how could she do that without your intervention? However, will you authorize my father-in-law to undertake your case? He will see the assignee, and sift the whole affair, since you have neither the time nor the inclination to attend to it.”
“Certainly, I authorize M. Leveque to do so, and tell him that I thank him a thousand times.”
Then this matter being settled, the young man, remarking the doctor’s pallor, and questioning him as to its cause, Pascal answered with a smile:
“Imagine, my friend, I have just had an attack of angina pectoris. Oh, it is not imagination, all the symptoms were there. And stay! since you are here you shall sound me.”