particularly interested: since the last time she came they had suffered a
relapse--the malady had changed in nature, and had shown graver symptoms.
It was a kind of deadly fatigue, killing them by a slows strange decay.
She asked questions of the doctors but could learn nothing: this malady
was unknown to them, and defied all the resources of their art. A
fortnight later she returned. Some of the sick people were dead, others
still alive, but desperately ill; living skeletons, all that seemed left
of them was sight, speech, and breath. At the end of two months they
were all dead, and the physicians had been as much at a loss over the
post-mortems as over the treatment of the dying.

Experiments of this kind were reassuring; so Lachaussee had orders to
carry out his instructions. One day the civil lieutenant rang his bell,
and Lachaussee, who served the councillor, as we said before, came up for
orders. He found the lieutenant at work with his secretary, Couste what
he wanted was a glass of wine and water. In a moment Lachaussee brought
it in. The lieutenant put the glass to his lips, but at the first sip
pushed it away, crying, "What have you brought, you wretch? I believe
you want to poison me." Then handing the glass to his secretary, he
added, "Look at it, Couste: what is this stuff?" The secretary put a few
drops into a coffee-spoon, lifting it to his nose and then to his mouth:
the drink had the smell and taste of vitriol. Meanwhile Lachaussee went
up to the secretary and told him he knew what it must be: one of the
councillor's valets had taken a dose of medicine that morning, and
without noticing he must have brought the very glass his companion had
used. Saying this, he took the glass from the secretary's hand, put it
to his lips, pretending to taste it himself, and then said he had no
doubt it was so, for he recognised the smell. He then threw the wine
into the fireplace.