Vile usurer! I was afraid, one moment, of being obliged to tell him all." While inveighing thus against the money-lender, the advocate looked at his watch.
"Half-past five already," he said.
His indecision was great.

Ought he to go and dine with his father?
Could he leave Madame Gerdy?
He longed to dine at the de Commarin mansion; yet, on the other hand, to leave a dying woman! "Decidedly," he murmured, "I can't go." He sat down at his desk, and with all haste wrote a letter of apology to his father.

Madame Gerdy, he said, might die at any moment; he must remain with her.

As he bade the servant give the note to a messenger, to carry it to the count, a sudden thought seemed to strike him.
"Does madame's brother," he asked, "know that she is dangerously ill ?" "I do not know, sir," replied the servant, "at any rate, I have not informed him." "What, did you not think to send him word?
Run to his house quickly.
Have him sought for, if he is not at home; he must come." Considerably more at ease, Noel went and sat in the sick-room.

The lamp was lighted; and the nun was moving about the room as though quite at home, dusting and arranging everything, and putting it in its place.