XXXVIII
It was market day. Marie-Rose had gone to lay in our small stock of provisions; she returned about nine o'clock, so much out of breath that she could scarcely hold her basket. When I saw her come in I recollected the pale faces of those young girls, of whom the poor people of our valley used to say that God was calling them, and who fell asleep quietly at the first snow. This idea struck me, and I was frightened; but then, steadying my voice, I said quite calmly:
"See here, Marie-Rose, all last night I heard you coughing; it makes me uneasy."
"Oh! it is nothing, father," she answered, colouring slightly; "it is nothing, the fine weather is coming and this cold will pass off."
"Anyhow," I replied, "I will not be easy, as long as a doctor has not told me what it is. I must go at once and get a doctor."
She looked at me, with her hands crossed over the basket, on the edge of the table; and, guessing perhaps by my anxiety that I had discovered the spots of blood, she murmured:
"Very well, father, to ease your mind."
"Yes," I said, "it is better to do things beforehand; what is nothing in the beginning may become very dangerous if neglected."
And I went out. Down stairs M. Michel gave me the address of Dr. Carrière, who lived in the Rue de la Mairie. I went to see him. He was a man of about sixty, lean, with black sparkling eyes and a grizzled head, who listened to me very attentively and asked me if I was not the brigadier forester that his friend M. d'Arence had spoken to him about. I answered that I was he, and he accompanied me at once.
Twenty minutes afterward we reached our room. When Marie-Rose came the doctor questioned her for a long time about the beginning of this cold, about her present symptoms, if she had not fever at night with shivering fits and attacks of suffocation.