DOCTOR GRIFFON.
Francois and Amandine had contrived to convey Fleur-de-Marie near the
fire, when M. de Saint-Remy and Doctor Griffon, who had crossed the
river in Nicholas's boat, entered the house. Whilst the children were
making the fire burn up, Doctor Griffon bestowed on the young girl his
utmost care.
"The poor girl cannot be more than seventeen at most!" exclaimed the
count, who was looking on. "What do you think of her, doctor?"
"Her pulse is scarcely perceptible; but, strange to say, the skin of the
face is not livid in the subject, as is usually the case in asphyxia
from submersion," replied the doctor, with professional calmness, and
contemplating Fleur-de-Marie with a deeply meditative air.
Doctor Griffon was a tall, thin man, pallid and completely bald, except
two tufts of thin black hair, carefully brushed back on the poll, and
flattened on the temples. His countenance, wrinkled and furrowed by the
fatigues of study, was calm, intelligent, and reflective. Profoundly
learned, of great experience, and a skilful practitioner, first surgeon
at a civil hospital, where we shall again encounter him, Doctor Griffon
had but one defect, that of completely abstracting himself from the
patient, and only considering the disease. Young or old, rich or poor,
was no matter,--he only thought of medical fact, more or less
remarkable, which the subject presented. For him there was nothing but
subjects.
"What a lovely face! How beautiful she is in spite of this frightful
paleness!" said M. de Saint-Remy. "Did you ever see milder or more
expressive features, my dear doctor? And so young--so young!"
"Age is no consequence," said the doctor, abruptly, "no more than the
presence of water in the lungs, which was formerly thought fatal. It was
a gross error, which the admirable experiments of Goodwin--the famous
Goodwin--incontestably detected and exposed."
"But doctor--"
"But it is a fact," replied M. Griffon, absorbed by the love of his art.
"To detect the presence of any foreign liquid in the lungs, Goodwin
plunged some cats and dogs several times into tubs filled with ink for
some seconds, taking them out alive, and then, after a time, dissected
the animals. Well, he was convinced from the dissection that the ink had
penetrated the lungs, and that the presence of this liquid in the
respiratory organs had not caused the death of the subject."
The count knew the doctor was a worthy creature at heart, but that his
mad passion for science made him often appear harsh and cruel.
"Have you any hope?" inquired M. de Saint-Remy, impatiently.
"The extremities of the subject are very cold," said the doctor; "there
is but very slight hope."
"Ah, poor child! To die at that age is indeed terrible!"
"Pupil fixed--dilated!" observed the doctor, impassive, and pushing up
the frigid eyelid of Fleur-de-Marie with his forefinger.
"What a singular man!" exclaimed the comte, almost with indignation.
"One would suppose you pitiless, and yet I have seen you watch by my
bedside for nights together. Had I been your brother, you could not have
been more generously devoted to me."
Doctor Griffon, still occupied in doing all that was requisite and
possible for Fleur-de-Marie, replied to the comte without looking at
him, and with imperturbable phlegm:
"_Parbleu!_ Do you think one meets with an intermittent fever so
wonderfully complicated as that you had! It was wonderful, my dear
friend--astonishing! Stupor, delirium, muscular action of the tendons,
syncopes,--that important fever combined the most varied symptoms. You
were, indeed, affected by a partial and momentary attack of paralysis;
and, if it had presented nothing else, why, your attack was entitled to
all the attention in my power. You presented a magnificent study; and,
truth to say, my dear friend, what I desire most in the world is to meet
with such another glorious fever. But that is a piece of good fortune
that never occurs twice!"
At this moment Martial descended, leaning on the arm of La Louve, who
still retained over her wet clothes the plaid cloak which belonged to
Calabash. Struck with the paleness of Martial, and remarking his hands
covered with dried blood, the comte exclaimed, "Who is this man?"
"My husband!" replied La Louve, looking at Martial with an expression of
happiness and noble pride impossible to describe.
"You have a good and intrepid wife, sir," said the comte to him. "I saw
her save this unfortunate young girl with singular courage."
"Yes, sir, my wife is good and intrepid," replied Martial, with
emphasis, and regarding La Louve with an air at once full of love and
tenderness. "Yes, intrepid; for she has also come in time to save my
life."
"Your life?" exclaimed the comte.
"Look at his hands--his poor hands!" said La Louve, wiping away the
tears which softened the wild brightness of her eyes.
"Horrible!" cried the comte. "See, doctor, how his hands are hacked!"
Doctor Griffon, turning his head slightly, and looking over his shoulder
at Martial's hands, said to him, "Open and shut your hand."
Martial did so with considerable pain. The doctor shrugged his
shoulders, and continued his attentions to Fleur-de-Marie, saying
merely, and as if with regret:
"There's nothing serious in those cuts,--there's no tendon injured. In a
week the subject will be able to use his hands again."
"Then, sir, my husband will not be crippled?" said La Louve, with
gratitude.
The doctor shook his head affirmatively.
"And La Goualeuse will recover--won't she, sir?" inquired La Louve. "Oh,
she must live, for I and my husband owe her so much!" Then turning
towards Martial, "Poor dear girl! There she is, as I told you,--she who
will, perhaps, be the cause of our happiness; for it was she who gave me
the idea of coming and saying to you all I have said. What a chance that
I should save her--and here, too!"
"She is a providence," said Martial, struck by the beauty of La
Goualeuse. "What an angel's face! Oh, she will recover, will she not,
doctor?"
"I cannot say," replied the doctor. "But, in the first place, can she
remain here? Will she have all necessary attention?"
"Here?" cried La Louve; "why, they commit murder here!"
"Silence--silence!" said Martial.
The comte and the doctor looked at La Louve with surprise.
"This house in the isle has a bad reputation hereabouts, and I am not
astonished at it," observed the doctor, in a low tone, to M. de
Saint-Remy.
"You have, then, been the victim of some violence?" observed the comte
to Martial. "How did you come by those wounds?"
"They are nothing--nothing, sir. I had a quarrel--a struggle ensued, and
I was wounded. But this young peasant girl cannot remain in this house,"
he added, with a gloomy air. "I cannot remain here myself--nor my wife,
nor my brother, nor my sister, whom you see. We are going to leave the
isle, never to return to it."
"Oh, how nice!" exclaimed the two children.
"Then what are we to do?" said the doctor, looking at Fleur-de-Marie.
"It is impossible to think of conveying the subject to Paris in her
present state of prostration. But then my house is quite close at hand,
my gardener's wife and her daughter are capital nurses; and since this
asphyxia by submersion interests you, my dear Saint-Remy, why, you can
watch over the necessary attentions, and I will come and see her every
day."
"And you assume the harsh and pitiless man," exclaimed the comte, "when,
as your proposal proves, you have one of the noblest hearts in the
world!"
"If the subject sinks under it, as is possible, there will be an
opportunity for a most interesting dissection, which will allow me to
confirm once again Goodwin's assertions."
"How horridly you talk!" cried the comte.
"For those who know how to read, the dead body is a book in which they
learn to save the lives of the diseased!" replied Dr. Griffon,
stoically.
"At last, then, you do good?" said M. de Saint-Remy, with bitterness;
"and that is important. What consequence is the cause provided that
benefit results? Poor child! The more I look at her the more she
interests me."
"And well does she deserve it, I can tell you, sir," observed La Louve,
with excitement, and approaching him.
"Do you know her?" inquired the comte.
"Do I know her, sir? Why, it is to her I owe the happiness of my life;
and I have not done for her half what she has done for me." And La Louve
looked passionately towards her husband,--she no longer called him her
man!
"And who is she?" asked M. de Saint-Remy.
"An angel, sir,--all that is good in this world. Yes; and although she
is dressed as a country girl, there is no merchant's wife, no great
lady, who can discourse as well as she can, with her sweet little voice
just like music. She is a noble girl, I say,--full of courage and
goodness."
"By what accident did she fall into the water?"
"I do not know, sir."
"Then she is not a peasant girl?" asked the comte.
"A peasant girl,--look at her small white hands, sir!"
"True," observed M. de Saint-Remy; "what a strange mystery! But her
name--her family?"
"Come along," said the doctor, breaking into the conversation; "we must
convey the subject into the boat."
Half an hour after this, Fleur-de-Marie, who had not yet recovered her
senses, was in the doctor's abode, lying in a good bed, and maternally
watched by M. Griffon's gardener's wife, to whom was added La Louve. The
doctor promised M. de Saint-Remy, who was more and more interested in La
Goualeuse, to return to see her again in the evening. Martial went to
Paris with Francois and Amandine, La Louve being unwilling to quit
Fleur-de-Marie before she had been pronounced out of danger.
The Isle du Ravageur remained deserted. We shall presently find its
sinister inhabitants at Bras-Rouge's, where they were to be joined by
the Chouette for the murder of the diamond-matcher. In the meantime we
will conduct the reader to the rendezvous which Tom, Sarah's brother,
had with the horrible hag, the Schoolmaster's accomplice.