"My G.o.d! M. David, she has fainted away. Poor M. Frederick is on his knees at her pillow sobbing; he calls her, but she hears nothing. It was he who told me to run for you, because we do not know what to do, we have all lost our head."
"You must tell Andre to hitch up and go in haste to Pont Brillant for Doctor Dufour. Run, run, Marguerite."
"Alas! monsieur, that is impossible. Master left this morning at three o"clock with the horse, and Andre is so old that he would take I do not know how much time to go to the city."
"I will go," said David, with a calmness which belied the agitation depicted in his face.
"You, M. David, go to the city on foot so far this freezing night!"
"In an hour," replied David, as he finished dressing himself for the journey, "Doctor Dufour will be here. Tell Frederick that to calm him.
While waiting my return, you had better take some warm tea to Madame Bastien. Try to get her warm by covering her with care, and drawing her bed near the large fire which you must kindle immediately. Come, courage, Marguerite," added David, taking his hat and hastily descending the stairs; "be sure to tell Frederick Doctor Dufour will be here in an hour."
Marguerite, after having conducted David to the garden gate, came to get the lamp that she had left on the threshold of the door, sheltered by the rustic porch.
As she stooped to take up the lamp she saw, half hidden by the snow, a neckerchief of orange silk belonging to Madame Bastien, and almost in the same spot she found a little slipper of red morocco encrusted, so to speak, in the snow hardened by the ice.
More and more surprised, and wondering how these articles, which evidently belonged to her mistress, came to be there, Marguerite, struck with a sudden idea, picked up the neckerchief and the slipper, then, with the aid of her lamp, she examined attentively the pavement of the corridor.
There she recognised the recent imprint of snow-covered feet, so that in following this trace of Madame Bastien"s little feet she noticed the last tracks at the door of her mistress. Suddenly Marguerite recollected that when she had a.s.sisted her mistress, overcome by the cold, to get in bed, it had not been unmade; other circ.u.mstances corroborated these observations, and the servant, terrified at the discovery she had just made, entered Madame Bastien"s chamber, where Frederick was sitting near his mother.
An hour and a quarter after David"s departure a cabriolet with two horses white with foam and marked with the postilion"s whip stopped at the door of the farm.
David and Doctor Dufour descended from this carriage.
CHAPTER x.x.xIX.
About three hours had pa.s.sed since the doctor had arrived at the farm.
David, discreetly withdrawn into the library, waited with mortal anxiety the news of Madame Bastien, with whom the doctor and Frederick remained.
Once only, David, standing in the door of the library, and seeing Marguerite rapidly pa.s.sing, as she came from the chamber of her mistress, called, in a low voice:
"Ah, well, Marguerite?"
"Ah, M. David!" was the only reply of the weeping woman, who pa.s.sed on without stopping.
"She is dying," said David, returning to the library.
And pale, his features distorted, his heart broken, he threw himself in an armchair, hid his face in his hands, and burst into tears, vainly trying to suppress his sobs.
"I have realised the despair of this restrained, hidden, impossible love," murmured he. "I thought I had suffered cruelly,--what is it to suffer derision compared to the fear of losing Marie? To lose her,--she to die--no, no! oh, but I will at least see her!"
And almost crazed with grief, David rushed across the room, but he stopped at the door.
"She is dying, perhaps, and I have no right to a.s.sist at her agony. What am I here? A stranger. Let me listen--nothing--nothing--the silence of the tomb. My G.o.d! in this chamber, where she perhaps is in the agony of death, what is happening? Ah, some one is coming out. It is Pierre."
And David, taking one step into the corridor, saw in the twilight of the dark pa.s.sage, the doctor coming out of Marie"s chamber.
"Pierre," said he, in a low voice, to hasten his coming, "Pierre!"
Doctor Dufour advanced rapidly toward David, when the latter heard a voice whisper:
"Doctor, I must speak to you."
At this voice Doctor Dufour stopped abruptly before the door of the dining-room, where he entered.
"Whose is this voice?" thought David. "Is it Marguerite? My G.o.d! what has happened?" and he listened on the side where the doctor entered. "It is Pierre who is talking; his exclamations announce indignation, dismay.
There, he is coming out at last; here he is."
In fact, Doctor Dufour, his face altered, and frowning with anger, entered the library, his hands still clasped in a gesture of horror, and exclaimed:
"It is horrible! it is infamous!"
David, thinking only of Marie, sprang to meet his friend.
"Pierre, in the name of Heaven, how is she? The truth! I will have courage, but for pity"s sake, the truth, frightful as it may be. There is no torture equal to what I have endured here for three hours, asking myself, is she living, agonising, or dead?"
The distorted features of David, his glowing eyes, red with recent tears, the inflection of his voice, betrayed at the same time so much despair and so much love, that Doctor Dufour, although himself under the power of violent emotion, stopped short at the sight of his friend, and gazed at him some moments before replying to him.
"Pierre, you tell me nothing, nothing!" cried David, distracted with grief. "Is she dying, then?"
"No, Henri, she is not dying."
"She will live!" cried David.
At this hope, his face became transfigured; he pressed the physician to his breast, as he murmured, unable to restrain his tears:
"I shall owe you more than life, Pierre."
"Henri," replied the doctor, with a sigh, "I have not said that she would live."
"You fear?"
"Very much."
"Oh, my G.o.d! but at least you hope?"
"I dare not yet."
"And how is she at this moment?"