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"Can it be possible?"

"The symptoms are marked, do you see?--sleep broken by nervous spasms, excitation of the brain, torpor of the nerve centres Madame de Saint-Meran succumbed to a powerful dose of brucine or of strychnine, which by soiven to her" Villefort seized the doctor's hand "Oh, it is ihtful to hear such things from such a man as you! Tell me, I entreat you, my dear doctor, that you may be deceived"

"Doubtless I may, but"-"But?"

"But I do not think so"

"Have pity on s have happened to e of madness"

"Has any one besidesbeen sent for from a chemist's that I have not examined?"

"Nothing"

"Had Madae"

"Would her death affect any one's interest?"

"It could not indeed, hter is her only heiress--Valentine alone Oh, if such a thought could present itself, I would stabfor one instant harbored it"

"Indeed, ny, "I would not accuse any one; I speak only of an accident, you understand,--of a mistake,--but whether accident or mistake, the fact is there; it is on my conscience and compels me to speak aloud to you Make inquiry"

"Of whom?--how?--of what?"

"May not Barrois, the old servant, have iven Madame de Saint-Meran a dose prepared for his master?"

"For my father?"

"Yes"

"But how could a dose prepared for M Noirtier poison Mada is more simple You know poisons become remedies in certain diseases, of which paralysis is one For instance, having tried every other remedy to restore movement and speech to M Noirtier, I resolved to try one lasthim brucine; so that in the last dose I ordered for hirains This quantity, which is perfectly safe to administer to the paralyzed fraradually accustomed to it, would be sufficient to kill another person"

"My dear doctor, there is no communication between M Noirtier's apartment and that of Madame de Saint-Meran, and Barrois never entered h I know you to be the h I place the ut my conviction, to believe this axiom, errare humanum est"