'When she is sensible, you will tell me,' he said to them, and went into an inner room. He was still pursued by that sense as of doing her some wrong, some dishonour, if he looked long at her in her unconsciousness.
The servants obeyed him without venturing on any question or comment, even among themselves. They were accustomed to strange things which their master did, and knew that human misery was title enough to his pity. When the physician joined them, he said at once what the guard of the streets had said: she was senseless from want of food.
'By my examination of her' he added to Othmar, 'I am inclined to believe that no food has entered her body for twenty-four hours or more.'
'Good God! How hideous!' said Othmar.
It seemed to him as if it were some crime of his own. Not a crust of bread in all Paris to nourish this child? In Paris, where epicures spent a thousand francs on a single dish of Chinese soup, or Russian fish, or honey-fed Sicilian ortolans!
The sharp contrast of wealth and of want jarred on him with a dissonant harsh clangour. A child could die from want of a mouthful of food in a city teeming with human life—and Christianity had been the professed creed of Europe well-nigh two thousand years!
'It is hideous!' he repeated; while a profound emotion consumed him and oppressed his utterance.
The physician looked at him in surprise at his agitation.
'You know her?' he asked.
Othmar hesitated; then he told the little that he did know.