“And—­Mademoiselle Laurence?” asked M. Plantat, with a trembling voice.  Baptiste assumed a tragic pose.

“Ah, gentlemen,” said he, “don’t ask me about her—­’tis heartrending!”

The doctor and M. Plantat heard no more, but hurried in; M. Lecoq followed, having confided his night-gown to Baptiste, with, “Carry that to M. Plantat’s—­quick!”

Misfortune, when it enters a house, seems to leave its fatal imprint on the very threshold.  Perhaps it is not really so, but it is the feeling which those who are summoned to it experience.  As the physician and the justice of the peace traversed the court-yard, this house, usually so gay and hospitable, presented a mournful aspect.  Lights were seen coming and going in the upper story.  Mlle. Lucile, the mayor’s youngest daughter, had had a nervous attack, and was being tended.  A young girl, who served as Laurence’s maid, was seated in the vestibule, on the lower stair, weeping bitterly.  Several domestics were there also, frightened, motionless, not knowing what to do in all this fright.  The drawing-room door was wide open; the room was dimly lighted by two candles; Mme. Courtois lay rather than sat in a large arm-chair near the fireplace.  Her husband was reclining on a lounge near the windows at the rear of the apartment.  They had taken off his coat and had torn away his shirt-sleeves and flannel vest, when he was to be bled.  There were strips of cotton wrapped about his naked arms.  A small man, habited like a well-to-do Parisian artisan, stood near the door, with an embarrassed expression of countenance.  It was Robelot, who had remained, lest any new exigency for his services should arise.

The entrance of his friend startled M. Courtois from the sad stupor into which he had been plunged.  He got up and staggered into the arms of the worthy Plantat, saying, in a broken voice: 

“Ah, my friend, I am most miserable—­most wretched!”

The poor mayor was so changed as scarcely to be recognizable.  He was no longer the happy man of the world, with smiling face, firm look, the pride of which betrayed plainly his self-importance and prosperity.  In a few hours he had grown twenty years older.  He was broken, overwhelmed; his thoughts wandered in a sea of bitterness.  He could only repeat, vacantly, again and again: 

“Wretched! most wretched!”

M. Plantat was the right sort of a friend for such a time.  He led M. Courtois back to the sofa and sat down beside him, and taking his hand in his own, forced him to calm his grief.  He recalled to him that his wife, the companion of his life, remained to him, to mourn the dear departed with him.  Had he not another daughter to cherish?  But the poor man was in no state to listen to all this.

“Ah, my friend,” said he shuddering, “you do not know all!  If she had died here, in the midst of us, comforted by our tender care, my despair would be great; but nothing compared with that which now tortures me.  If you only knew—­”