"'Ah! the owner of the Tower is sick, is he? Did he tell you to summon a doctor?'
"'No, indeed he didn't! on the contrary, every time I say to him: "You ought to have a doctor, monsieur, and if you say so I'll go and call the doctor at Chelles, Monsieur Beaubichon, who's very learned and very skilful," he says: "Let me alone, Mère Lucas! I don't need a doctor, I won't have one; if I have got to die, I can die without doctors, and if it is the will of heaven that I live, they won't be the ones to cure me; nature will come to my assistance."'
"'Well,' I said to the old peasant, 'as this gentleman doesn't want a doctor, why were you coming to fetch me?'
"'Why, monsieur, as if we ought to listen to sick folks, especially when they're so peculiar as my master! He don't get any better since he said that; on the contrary, he is much weaker since yesterday, and he seems to be suffering more. So it's my duty to take care of him in spite of him; and as it's your business to cure people, monsieur le docteur, you can't refuse to prescribe for my master.'
"I reflected for some time; I am certainly not so inquisitive as Madame Droguet, and I am not the man to crouch in the bushes for five days in succession watching for a man I don't know. And yet I was not sorry to obtain a nearer view of that strange man who avoided everybody, and to be able to judge for myself whether Madame Droguet and neighbor Luminot had not been a little severe on him. To make a long story short, as the old servant still begged me to go with her to the Tower, I said to myself: 'I may as well go; the man is sick; I am asked to go to see a sick man, and it's my duty to go; that's my profession.'
"So I started off with Mère Lucas. On the way, I ventured to ask a few questions about the proprietor.
"The old peasant's constant refrain was:
"'Oh! he's a very nice man! an excellent man!'
"As the woman is deaf, I concluded that she didn't hear my questions and that she naturally answered at random.
"We reached the Tower in due time, and I entered the house, which, although well furnished—richly furnished indeed—seemed to me wretchedly kept. I passed through several rooms and at last reached a door which the peasant motioned to me to open, saying: