ht up
to Athos, who saw him without evincing more surprise than if he had
understood nothing of the apparition.

"Monsieur le Comte, I crave your pardon," said the doctor, coming up to
the patient with open arms; "but I have a reproach to make you--you
shall hear me." And he seated himself by the pillow of Athos, who had
great trouble in rousing himself from his preoccupation.

"What is the matter, doctor?" asked the comte, after a silence.

"Why, the matter is, you are ill, monsieur, and have had no advice."

"I! ill!" said Athos, smiling.

"Fever, consumption, weakness, decay, Monsieur le Comte."

"Weakness!" replied Athos; "is that possible? I do not get up."

"Come, come, M. le Comte, no subterfuges; you are a good Christian?"

"I hope so," said Athos.

"Would you kill yourself?"

"Never, doctor."

"Well, monsieur, you are in a fair way of doing so; to remain thus is
suicide; get well! M. le Comte, get well!"

"Of what? Find the disease first. For my part, I never knew myself
better; never did the sky appear more blue to me; never did I take more
care of my flowers."

"You have a concealed grief."

"Concealed!--not at all; I have the absence of my son, doctor; that is
my malady, and I do not conceal it."

"M. le Comte, your son lives, he is strong, he has all the future before
him of men of his merit, and of his race; live for him--"

"But I do live, doctor; oh! be satisfied of that," added he, with a
melancholy smile; "as long as Raoul lives, it will be plainly known, for
as long as he lives, I shall live."

"What do you say?"

"A very simple thing. At this moment, doctor, I leave life suspended in
me. A forgetful, dissipated, indifferent life would be above my strength
now I have no longer Raoul with me. You do not ask the lamp to burn when
the spark has not enlightened the flame; do not ask me to live amid
noise and light. I vegetate, I prepare myself, I wait. Look, doctor;
remember those soldiers we have so often seen together at the ports,
where they were waiting to embark; lying down, indifferent, half upon
one element, half upon the other; they were neither at the place where
the sea was going to carry them, nor at the place where the earth was
going to lose them; baggages prepared, minds upon the stretch, looks
fixed--they waited. I repeat it, that word is the one which paints my
present life. Lying down, like the soldiers, my ear on the stretch for
the reports that may reach me, I wis