Boutan leant towards Mathieu and whispered in his ear: "She will be
raving mad and shut up in a padded cell before a week is over." And,
indeed, a week later the Baroness de Lowicz was wearing a straight
waistcoat. In her case Dr. Gaude's treatment had led to absolute
insanity.
Mathieu and Boutan watched beside Constance until daybreak. She never
opened her lips, nor raised her eyelids. As the sun rose up, she turned
towards the wall, and then she died.
XXII
STILL more years passed, and Mathieu was already sixty-eight and Marianne
sixty-five, when amid the increasing good fortune which they owed to
their faith in life, and their long courageous hopefulness, a last
battle, the most dolorous of their existence, almost struck them down and
sent them to the grave, despairing and inconsolable.
One evening Marianne went to bed, quivering, utterly distracted. Quite a
rending was taking place in the family. A disastrous and hateful quarrel
had set the mill, where Gregoire reigned supreme, against the farm which
was managed by Gervais and Claire. And Ambroise, on being selected as
arbiter, had fanned the flames by judging the affair in a purely business
way from his Paris counting-house, without taking into account the
various passions which were kindled.
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