ncident had occurred
just before the races. Zibeline's servants, by whom she was adored,
awaited their mistress at the threshold, and for her maids it was an
affair of some minutes to undress her and lay her in her own bed. During
this delay, the surgeon, who had hastened to answer the call, found
Henri nervously walking about from one drawing-room to the other; and,
having received information as to the details of the fall, he soon
entered the bedchamber. While awaiting the sentence of life or of death
which must soon be pronounced, he who considered himself the chief cause
of this tragic event continued to pace to and fro in the gallery--that
gallery where, under the intoxication of a waltz, the demon of
temptation had so quickly demolished all his resolutions of resistance.
A half-hour--an age!--elapsed before the skilled practitioner
reappeared. "There is no fracture," he said, "but the cerebral shock
has been such that I can not as yet answer for the consequences. If the
powerful reactive medicine which I have just given should bring her back
to her senses soon, her mental faculties will suffer no harm. If not,
there is everything to fear. I will return in three hours," he added.
Without giving a thought to the conventionalities, Henri entered the
bedchamber, to the great astonishment of the maids, and, installing
himself at the head of the bed, he decided not to leave that spot until
Valentine had regained her senses, should she ever regain them. An
hour passed thus, while Henri kept the same attitude, erect, attentive,
motionless, with stray scraps of his childhood's prayers running through
his brain. Suddenly the heavy eyelids of the wounded girl were lifted;
the dulness of the eyes disappeared; her body made an involuntary
attempt to change its position; the nostrils dilated; the lips quivered
in an effort to speak. Youth and life had triumphed over death. With
painful slowness, she tried to raise her hand to her head, the seat of
her pain, where, though half paralyzed, thought was beginning to return.
Her eyes wandered to and fro in the shadowy room, seeking to recognize
the surroundings. A ray of light, filtering through the window-curtains,
showed her the anxious face bending tenderly over her. "Henri!" she
murmured, in a soft, plaintive voice. That name, pronounced thus, the
first word uttered after her long swoon, revealed her secret. Never had
a more complete yet modest avowal been more simply expressed; wa