From that day onward a mere word or glance would suffice to awaken Jeanne’s jealousy.  While she was in the perilous grip of death some instinct had led her to put her trust in the loving tenderness with which they had shielded and saved her.  But now strength was returning to her, and she would allow none to participate in her mother’s love.  She conceived a kind of spite against the doctor, a spite which stealthily grew into hate as her health improved.  It was hidden deep within her self-willed brain, in the innermost recesses of her suspicious and silent nature.  She would never consent to explain things; she herself knew not what was the matter with her; but she felt ill whenever the doctor drew too near to her mother; and would press her hands violently to her bosom.  Her torment seemed to sear her very heart, and furious passion choked her and made her cheeks turn pale.  Nor could she place any restraint on herself; she imagined every one unjust, grew stiff and haughty, and deigned no reply when she was charged with being very ill-tempered.  Helene, trembling with dismay, dared not press her to explain the source of her trouble; indeed, her eyes turned away whenever this eleven-year-old child darted at her a glance in which was concentrated the premature passion of a woman.

“Oh, Jeanne, you are making me very wretched!” she would sometimes say to her, the tears standing in her eyes as she observed her stifling in her efforts to restrain a sudden bubbling up of mad anger.

But these words, once so potent for good, which had so often drawn the child weeping to Helene’s arms, were now wholly without influence.  There was a change taking place in her character.  Her humors varied ten times a day.  Generally she spoke abruptly and imperiously, addressing her mother as though she were Rosalie, and constantly plaguing her with the pettiest demands, ever impatient and loud in complaint.

“Give me a drink.  What a time you take!  I am left here dying of thirst!” And when Helene handed the glass to her she would exclaim:  “There’s no sugar in it; I won’t have it!”

Then she would throw herself back on her pillow, and a second time push away the glass, with the complaint that the drink was too sweet.  They no longer cared to attend to her, she would say; they were doing it purposely.  Helene, dreading lest she might infuriate her to a yet greater extent, made no reply, but gazed on her with tears trembling on her cheeks.

However, Jeanne’s anger was particularly visible when the doctor made his appearance.  The moment he entered the sick-room she would lay herself flat in bed, or sullenly hang her head in the manner of savage brutes who will not suffer a stranger to come near.  Sometimes she refused to say a word, allowing him to feel her pulse or examine her while she remained motionless with her eyes fixed on the ceiling.  On other days she would not even look at him, but clasp her hands over her eyes with such a gust of passion that to remove them would have necessitated the violent twisting of her arms.  One night, as her mother was about to give her a spoonful of medicine, she burst out with the cruel remark:  “I won’t have it; it will poison me.”