Georgine, overflowing with youth and vigorous health, needed a great deal of sleep. It was therefore still not very late in the evening when she dozed off in an armchair. Marie had motheringly laid a thick shawl over her. The housekeeper, a married woman who went home in the evenings, had left, and Luc Hancq had gone to his room. The whole house lay at rest.
Marie kept watch. Now and then the sick woman groaned or asked for something, and Marie answered in that careful, half-whispering tone peculiar to the night and to the surroundings of a sickbed.
Mrs. Hancq grew thirsty, and her nurse was at a loss. It was impossible to raise the invalid’s head without making her utter a stifled cry of pain, after which she herself anxiously begged Marie not to try again. They had already attempted to pour the drink into her mouth with a spoon, but without success: most of the liquid ran down beside her mouth or into her neck.