“How is George?”
“Oh, not at all well to-day, madame.”
She did not rise until noon, when she ate two eggs with a cup of tea, as if she herself had been ill, and then she went out to a druggist's to inquire about prophylactic measures against the contagion of small-pox.
She did not come home until dinner time, laden with medicine bottles, and shut herself up at once in her room, where she saturated herself with disinfectants.
The priest was waiting for her in the dining-room. As soon as she saw him she exclaimed in a voice full of emotion:
“Well?”
“No improvement. The doctor is very anxious:”
She began to cry and could eat nothing, she was so worried.
The next day, as soon as it was light, she sent to inquire for her son, but there was no improvement and she spent the whole day in her room, where little braziers were giving out pungent odors. Her maid said also that you could hear her sighing all the evening.
She spent a whole week in this manner, only going out for an hour or two during the afternoon to breathe the air.