s written upon it, though I can read very well,
sir, if I haven't any handwriting. I sat down near the bed, but it was
nearly half an hour before my lady and the count came in. The marquis
looked as he did when they left him, and I never said a word about his
having been otherwise. Mr. Urbain said that the doctor had been
called to a person in child-birth, but that he promised to set out for
Fleurieres immediately. In another half hour he arrived, and as soon as
he had examined the marquis he said that we had had a false alarm. The
poor gentleman was very low, but he was still living. I watched my lady
and her son when he said this, to see if they looked at each other, and
I am obliged to admit that they didn't. The doctor said there was no
reason he should die; he had been going on so well. And then he wanted
to know how he had suddenly fallen off; he had left him so very hearty.
My lady told her little story again--what she had told Mr. Urbain and
me--and the doctor looked at her and said nothing. He stayed all the
next day at the chateau, and hardly left the marquis. I was always
there. Mademoiselle and Mr. Valentin came and looked at their father,
but he never stirred. It was a strange, deathly stupor. My lady was
always about; her face was as white as her husband's, and she looked
very proud, as I had seen her look when her orders or her wishes had
been disobeyed. It was as if the poor marquis had defied her; and the
way she took it made me afraid of her. The apothecary from Poitiers kept
the marquis along through the day, and we waited for the other doctor
from Paris, who, as I told you, had been staying at Fleurieres. They had
telegraphed for him early in the morning, and in the evening he arrived.
He talked a bit outside with the doctor from Poitiers, and then they
came in to see the marquis together. I was with him, and so was Mr.
Urbain. My lady had been to receive the doctor from Paris, and she
didn't come back with him into the room. He sat down by the marquis;
I can see him there now, with his hand on the marquis's wrist, and Mr.
Urbain watching him with a little looking-glass in his hand. 'I'm sure
he's better,' said the little doctor from Poitiers; 'I'm sure he'll come
back.' A few moments after he had said this the marquis opened his eyes,
as if he were waking up, and looked at us, from one to the other. I saw
him look at me, very softly, as you'd say. At the same moment my lady
came in on tiptoe; she came