Jezebel's Daughter

In the meantime, Madame Fontaine reached her room.

'Where is Fritz?' she asked, dropping her daughter's arm.

'He has gone out, mamma. Don't send me away! You seem to be almost as ill as poor Mrs. Wagner—I want to be with you.'

Madame Fontaine hesitated. 'Do you love me with all your heart and soul?' she asked suddenly. 'Are you worthy of any sacrifice that a mother can make for her child?'

Before the girl could answer, she spoke more strangely still.

'Are you just as fond of Fritz as ever? would it break your heart if you lost him?'

Minna placed her mother's hand on her bosom.

'Feel it, mamma,' she said quietly. Madame Fontaine took her chair by the fire-side—seating herself with her back to the light. She beckoned to her daughter to sit by her. After an interval, Minna ventured to break the silence.

'I am very sorry for Mrs. Wagner, mamma; she has always been so kind to me. Do you think she will die?' Resting her elbows on her knees, staring into the fire, the widow lifted her head—looked round—and looked back again at the fire.

'Ask the doctor,' she said. 'Don't ask me.'

There was another long interval of silence. Minna's eyes were fixed anxiously on her mother. Madame Fontaine remained immovable, still looking into the fire.

Afraid to speak again, Minna sought refuge from the oppressive stillness in a little act of attention. She took a fire-screen from the chimney-piece, and tried to place it gently in her mother's hand.

At that light touch, Madame Fontaine sprang to her feet as if she had felt the point of a knife. Had she seen some frightful thing? had she heard some dreadful sound? 'I can't bear it!' she cried—'I can't bear it any longer!'

'Are you in pain, mamma? Will you lie down on the bed?' Her mother only looked at her. She drew back trembling, and said no more.

Madame Fontaine crossed the room to the wardrobe. When she spoke next, she was outwardly quite calm again. 'I am going out for a walk,' she said.

'A walk, mamma? It's getting dark already.'

'Dark or light, my nerves are all on edge—I must have air and exercise.'

'Let me go with you?'

She paced backwards and forwards restlessly, before she answered. 'The room isn't half large enough!' she burst out. 'I feel suffocated in these four walls. Space! space! I must have space to breathe in! Did you say you wished to go out with me? I want a companion, Minna. Don't you mind the cold?'

'I don't even feel it, in my fur cloak.'

'Get ready, then, directly.'

In ten minutes more, the mother and daughter were out of the house.

CHAPTER XIV

Doctor Dormann was punctual to his appointment. He was accompanied by a stranger, whom he introduced as a surgeon. As before, Jack slipped into the room, and waited in a corner, listening and watching attentively.

Instead of improving under the administration of the remedies, the state of the patient had sensibly deteriorated. On the rare occasions when she attempted to speak, it was almost impossible to understand her. The sense of touch seemed to be completely lost—the poor woman could no longer feel the pressure of a friendly hand. And more ominous still, a new symptom had appeared; it was with evident difficulty that she performed the act of swallowing. Doctor Dormann turned resignedly to the surgeon.

'There is no other alternative,' he said; 'you must bleed her.'

At the sight of the lancet and the bandage, Jack started out of his corner. His teeth were fast set; his eyes glared with rage. Before he could approach the surgeon Mr. Keller took him sternly by the arm and pointed to the door. He shook himself free—he saw the point of the lancet touch the vein. As the blood followed the incision, a cry of horror burst from him: he ran out of the room.

'Wretches! Tigers! How dare they take her blood from her! Oh, why am I only a little man? why am I not strong enough to fling the brutes out of the window? Mistress! Mistress! is there nothing I can do to help you?'

These wild words poured from his lips in the solitude of his little bedchamber. In the agony that he suffered, as the sense of Mrs. Wagner's danger now forced itself on him, he rolled on the floor, and struck himself with his clenched fists. And, again and again, he cried out to her, 'Mistress! Mistress! is there nothing I can do to help you?'

The strap that secured his keys became loosened, as his frantic movements beat the leather bag, now on one side, and now on the other, upon the floor. The jingling of the keys rang in his ears. For a moment, he lay quite still. Then, he sat up on the floor. He tried to think calmly. There was no candle in the room. The nearest light came from a lamp on the landing below. He got up, and went softly down the stairs. Alone on the landing, he held up the bag and looked at it. 'There's something in my mind, trying to speak to me,' he said to himself. 'Perhaps, I shall find it in here?'

He knelt down under the light, and shook out the keys on the landing.

One by one he ranged them in a row, with a single exception. The key of the desk happened to be the first that he took up. He kissed it—it was her key—and put it back in the bag. Placing the others before him, the duplicate key was the last in the line. The inscription caught his eye. He held it to the light and read 'Pink-Room Cupboard.'

The lost recollection now came back to him in intelligible form. The 'remedy' that Madame Fontaine had locked up—the precious 'remedy' made by the wonderful master who knew everything—was at his disposal. He had only to