He squeezed my hand, and from exhaustion let it fall. The surgeon led
me out of the room, saying, "All depends on his being kept quiet." I
then learned that he owed his life to two circumstances--the first was,
my having bound my neckcloth round the wound; the other was, that the
duel took place below high-water mark. The tide was rising when I left
him; and the cold waves as they rippled against his body, had restored
him to animation. In this state he was found by his servant, not many
minutes before the flood would have covered him, for he had not strength
to move out of its way. I ascertained also that the ball had entered
his liver, and had passed out without doing further injury.

I now dressed myself, and devoutly thanking God for His miraculous
preservation, took my seat by the bedside of the patient, which I never
quitted until his perfect recovery. When this was happily completed, I
wrote to my father and to Clara, giving both an exact account of the
whole transaction. Clara, undeceived, made no scruple of acknowledging
her attachment. Talbot was requested by his father to return home. I
accompanied him as far as Calais, where we parted; and in a few weeks
after, I had the pleasure of hearing that my sister had become his wife.

Left to myself, returned slowly, and much depressed in spirits, to
Quillacq's; where, ordering post-horses, I threw myself into my
travelling-carriage into which my valet had by my orders previously
placed my luggage.

"Where are you going to, _monsieur_?" said the valet.

"_Au diable_!" said I.

"_Mais les passeports_?" said the man.

I felt that I had sufficient passports for the journey I had proposed;
but correcting myself, said, "to Switzerland." It was the first name
that came into my head; and I had heard that it was the resort of all my
countrymen whose heads, hearts, lungs, or finances were disordered. But
during my journey, I neither saw nor heard anything, consequently took
no notes, which my readers will rejoice at, because they will be spared
that inexhaustible supply to the trunk-makers, "A tour through France
and Switzerland." I travelled night and day; for I could not sleep.
The allegory of Io and the gad-fly in the heathen mythology, must surely
have been intended to represent the being who, like myself, was
tormented by a bad conscience. Like Io I flew; and like her, I was
pursued by the eternal gad-fly, wherever I went; and in vain did I try
to e