But Cazenove went on giving explanations. 'It is a case of conscience,' he concluded. 'I beg of you, decide yourselves.'
Sobs now prevented Lazare from answering. He had taken his handkerchief and was twisting it convulsively whilst striving to recover a little of his reason. Chanteau still looked on in stupefaction. And only Pauline was able to say, 'Why did you come down? It is cruel to torture us like this, when you alone know the best course, and alone are able to act.'
Just then Madame Bouland herself descended the stairs to say that matters were becoming much worse. 'Have you decided?' she inquired. 'The lady is sinking.'
Thereupon, with one of those sudden impulses which disconcerted people, Cazenove threw his arms about Lazare, kissed him, and exclaimed: 'Listen, I will try to save them both.... And if they succumb—well, I shall be yet more grieved than yourself, for I shall take it to be my own fault.'
Excepting Chanteau, who in his turn embraced his son, they all went upstairs together. Cazenove desired it. Louise was fully conscious, but very low. She offered no objection to a doctor now; her sufferings were too great. When he began to speak to her she simply answered: 'Kill me; kill me at once.'
There came a cruel and affecting scene. It was one of those dread hours when life and death wrestle together, when human science and skill battle to overcome and correct the errors of Nature. More than once did the Doctor pause, fearing a fatal issue. The patient's agony was terrible, but at last science triumphed, and a child was born. It was a boy.
Lazare, who had turned his face to the wall, was sobbing, and burst out into tears. He had been a prey to the keenest mental torture during the progress of the operations, and he thought despairingly that it would be preferable for them all to die rather than to continue living if such intense agony was to be mingled with life.
But Pauline bent over Louise and kissed her on the forehead.
'Come and kiss her!' she said to her cousin.