"
As he started off, Madame Ferailleur sprang from her chair.
"Pascal," she exclaimed, "that man knows something, and your
enemies are his; I read it in his eyes. He, too, distrusts M. de
Coralth."
"I understood him, mother, and my mind is made up. I must
disappear. From this moment Pascal Ferailleur no longer exists."
That same evening two large vans were standing outside Madame
Ferailleur's house. She had sold her furniture without reserve,
and was starting to join her son, who had already left for Le
Havre, she said, in view of sailing to America.
VI.
"There are a number of patients waiting for me. I will drop in
again about midnight. I still have several urgent visits to
make." Thus had Dr. Jodon spoken to Mademoiselle Marguerite; and
yet, when he left the Hotel de Chalusse, after assuring himself
that Casimir would have some straw spread over the street, the
doctor quietly walked home. The visits he had spoken of merely
existed in his imagination; but it was a part of his role to
appear to be overrun with patients. To tell the truth, the only
patient he had had to attend to that week was a superannuated
porter, living in the Rue de la Pepiniere, and whom he visited
twice a day, for want of something better to do. The remainder of
his time was spent in waiting for patients who never came, and in
cursing the profession of medicine, which was ruined, he declared,
by excessive competition, combined with certain rules of decorum
which hampered young practitioners beyond endurance.
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