William came over to her, looking quite astounded: "But listen to me now—it would only be right—it is his due—you ought to!"
She looked, with her wide-open eyes and quivering lips, as if she had lost her reason. She kept repeating in a piercing voice, so loud that it must have penetrated through the walls: "No!—no!—never!" And then, no longer knowing what she said, and pointing with outstretched arm toward Madame Honorat, who was standing in the center of the apartment:
"I do not want her either!—send her away!—I don't want to see her!—send her away!"
Then he rushed to his wife's side, took her in his arms, and kissed her on the forehead: "My little Christiane, be calm! What is the matter with you?—come now, be calm!"
She had by this time lost the power of raising her voice. The tears gushed from her eyes.
"Send them all away," said she, "and remain alone with me!"
He went across, in a distracted frame of mind, to the doctor's wife, and gently pushing her toward the door: "Leave us for a few minutes, pray. It is the fever—the milk-fever. I will calm her. I will look for you again by and by."
When he came back to the bedside Christiane was lying down, weeping quietly, without moving in any way, quite prostrated.
And then, for the first time in his life, he, too, began to weep.
In fact, the milk-fever had broken out during the night, and delirium supervened. After some hours of extreme excitement, the recently delivered woman suddenly began to speak.