Fantômas by Pierre Souvestre

"Boulevard Rochechouart," said Berthe, the young asylum nurse, to the conductor as she sprang into the tram just as it was starting.

It was a September afternoon, one of the last fine days of the now fast-dying summer, and the girl had just got her fortnightly leave for forty-eight hours. She had gone off duty at noon, and now had until noon on the next day but one to resume her own personality and shake off the anxieties that beset all those who are charged with the constant care of the insane, the most distressing kind of patients that exists. As a general rule Berthe spent her fortnightly holidays with her old grandparents in their cottage outside Paris, but on this occasion she had elected to remain in the city, influenced thereto by the long conversation she had had with the patient confided to her particular care, No. 25, Mme. Rambert. Since that first talk with her, on the day of Professor Swelding's visit to the asylum, she had had others, and Berthe had now elaborated a plan to enable the supposed lunatic to escape, and had decided to spend her short holiday in bringing the plan to a point.