"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 some mistake, perhaps, has been given to her." Villefort seized the doctor's hand. "Oh, it is impossible," said he, "I must be dreaming! It is frightful 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 me doctor! So many dreadful things have happened to me lately that I am on the verge of madness."
"Has any one besides me seen Madame de Saint-Meran?"
"No."
"Has anything been sent for from a chemist's that I have not examined?"
"Nothing."
"Had Madame de Saint-Meran any enemies?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"Would her death affect any one's interest?"
"It could not indeed, my daughter is her only heiress--Valentine alone. Oh, if such a thought could present itself, I would stab myself to punish my heart for having for one instant harbored it."
"Indeed, my dear friend," said M. d'Avrigny, "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 made a mistake, and have given Madame de Saint-Meran a dose prepared for his master?"
"For my father?"
"Yes."
"But how could a dose prepared for M. Noirtier poison Madame de Saint-Meran?"
"Nothing 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 last means, and for three months I have been giving him brucine; so that in the last dose I ordered for him there were six grains. This quantity, which is perfectly safe to administer to the paralyzed frame of M. Noirtier, which has become gradually 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 my mother-in-law's room. In short, doctor although I know you to be the most conscientious man in the world, and although I place the utmost reliance in you, I want, notwithstanding my conviction, to believe this axiom, errare humanum est."