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Her face was beaded with moisture. THE PRESIDENT. Had you or had you not any white powder at Losmine? HELENE. I can't say if I still had fever there. THE PRESIDENT. What was that powder? When did you first have it? HELENE. I had taken it at Locmine. Somebody gave it to me for two sous. What powder would one prescribe for fever? DR TOUSSAINT. Sulphate of quinine; but that's not what it was.
This did not serve to remove the impression of shiftiness, for her answers were seldom to the point. Wasn't it true, she was asked, that in Locmine she had been followed and insulted with cries: ``C'est la femme au foie blanc; elle porte la mort avec elle!? Nobody had ever said anything of the sort to her, was her sullen answer. A useless denial.
``Ai but I'm so unhappy! Helene grieved. ``Where-ever I go Seglien, Guern, Bubry, Veuve Laboucher's people die! She had cause for grief, sure enough. In less than eighteen months thirteen persons with whom she had been closely associated had died of violent sickness. But more were to follow. In May of 1835 Helene was in service with the Dame Toussaint, of Locmine. Four more people died.
Her grief over their deaths impressed every one with whom she came in contact. From Bubry Helene went to Locmine. Her family connexion as servants with the clergy found her room for three days in the rectory, after which she became apprentice to a needlewoman of the town, one Marie-Jeanne Leboucher, with whom she lived. The Widow Leboucher was stricken ill, as also was one of her daughters.
Questioned by the advocate for the defence, the witness said he would not affirm that the powder he saw was arsenic. His present opinion, however, was that his father and sister had died from injections of arsenic in small doses. A witness from Locmine spoke of her sister's two children becoming ill after taking chocolate prepared by the accused.
They also remarked on the very kind ministrations of Helene. Dr Toussaint, doctor at Locmine, and son to the house in which Helene had for a time been servant, told of his perplexity over the symptoms in the cases of the Widow Lorey and the youth Leboucher. In 1835 he had been called in to see Helene herself, who was suffering from an intermittent fever. Next day the fever had disappeared.
Martel, a pharmacist, brother of the doctor who had attended Le Drogo, spoke of his brother's suspicions, suspicions which had recurred on meeting with the cases at Bubry. They had been diverted by the lavishly affectionate attendance Helene had given to the sufferers. Relatives of the victims of Locmine told of Helene's predictions of death, and of her plaints that death followed her everywhere.
Time and again you find her being taken in by kindly people after such `accidents, and made an object of sympathy for the dreadful coincidences that were making her so unhappy. It was out of sympathy that the Widow Lorey, of Locmine, took Helene into her house. On the widow's death the niece arrived.
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