"I must go there," said she.
"But the doctor forbids your going out."
"I do not care--I must go!--Poor Crevel! what a state he must be in;
for he loves that woman."
"He is dying too," replied Countess Steinbock. "Ah! all our enemies
are in the devil's clutches--"
"In God's hands, my child--"
Lisbeth dressed in the famous yellow Indian shawl and her black velvet
bonnet, and put on her boots; in spite of her relations'
remonstrances, she set out as if driven by some irresistible power.
She arrived in the Rue Barbet a few minutes after Monsieur and Madame
Hulot, and found seven physicians there, brought by Bianchon to study
this unique case; he had just joined them. The physicians, assembled
in the drawing-room, were discussing the disease; now one and now
another went into Valerie's room or Crevel's to take a note, and
returned with an opinion based on this rapid study.
These princes of science were divided in their opinions. One, who
stood alone in his views, considered it a case of poisoning, of
private revenge, and denied its identity with the disease known in the
Middle Ages. Three others regarded it as a specific deterioration of
the blood and the humors. The rest, agreeing with Bianchon, maintained
that the blood was poisoned by some hitherto unknown morbid infection.
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