"It is true, it is true; I shudder when I think of it, poor child!"
"Silence, Jeanne, here is the doctor!" said La Lorraine.
CHAPTER XIX.
CLAIRE DE FERMONT.
After having rapidly visited several patients whose cases presented no great interest, the doctor at length reached the bed of Jeanne Duport.
At the sight of the eager crowd, who, anxious to see and to know, to understand and to learn, pressed around her bed, the unhappy woman, seized with a tremor of fear and shame, wrapped herself closely in the covering. The severe and intelligent face of Dr. Griffon, his penetrating look, his brow habitually contracted, his rough manner of speaking, augmented still more the alarm of Jeanne.
"A new subject!" said the doctor, casting his eye on the card where was inscribed the nature of the malady of the new-comer. He preserved a profound silence, while his assistants, imitating the prince of science, fixed their eyes on the patient with curiosity. She, to throw aside as much as possible all the painful emotions caused by so many spectators, looked steadily at the doctor, with deep anguish.
After an examination of several minutes, the doctor, remarking something anomalous in the yellowish tint of the eyeball, approached nearer to her, and with the end of his finger pushing back the eyelid, he examined the crystalline lens. Then several students, answering to a kind of mute invitation of their professor, went, in turn, to observe the appearance of the eye. Afterward the doctor proceeded to this interrogatory: "Your name?"
"Jeanne Duport," murmured the patient, more and more alarmed.
"Your age?"