But Gervaise was greatly surprised to see Lalie herself in bed, looking very pale, with the sheet drawn up to her chin.

In bed, indeed, then she must be seriously ill! "What is the matter with you ?" inquired Gervaise, feeling anxious.
Lalie no longer groaned.

She slowly raised her white eyelids, and tried to compel her lips to smile, although they were convulsed by a shudder.
"There's nothing the matter with me," she whispered very softly.

"Really nothing at all." Then, closing her eyes again, she added with an effort: "I made myself too tired during the last few days, and so I'm doing the idle; I'm nursing myself, as you see." But her childish face, streaked with livid stains, assumed such an expression of anguish that Gervaise, forgetting her own agony, joined her hands and fell on her knees near the bed.

For the last month she had seen the girl clinging to the walls for support when she went about, bent double indeed, by a cough which seemed to presage a coffin.