Villains! Accursed villains!" She sang, laughed, cried, and repeated "accursed villains!" in strangely sonorous tones, which suggested a crackling of a fusillade.

Pascal, with tears in his eyes, took her in his arms and laid her on the bed again.

She submitted like a child, but persisted in her wailing cries, accelerating their rhythm, and beating time on the sheet with her withered hands.
"That's just what I was afraid of," the doctor said; "she is mad.

The blow has been too heavy for a poor creature already subject, as she is, to acute neurosis.

She will die in a lunatic asylum like her father." "But what could she have seen ?" asked Rougon, at last venturing to quit the corner where he had hidden himself.
"I have a terrible suspicion," Pascal replied.