"Ill! Oh! what stuff. Come on, though. I will see to this to-morrow!"
And she took down a lantern from the wall and led the way up the creaking stairs. Two or three men came out of the lower room at the same moment.
"Is that Zelda?" they shouted. "Send her here to sing for us."
But the stout woman opened a door and Sanselme laid his burden on the bed. It was a sordid room in which he found himself. On the dirty walls hung some colored prints of doubtful propriety. On one was a dark stain, as if a glass of wine had been thrown upon it.
"Let me take off the quilt," said the woman, extending her hand to remove the ragged covering on the bed.
Sanselme, filled with disgust at her cupidity, answered:
"Let everything alone. I will pay whatever is necessary."
"Very good, sir; if you answer for it, that's all right."
"And now I want a physician," he added.
"A physician! Oh, that is nonsense. You must not be taken in in this way. She goes out every evening for her daughter, who is apprenticed to a milliner, and this time she took a drop too much, that is all!"