It was only two weeks since the Duc de Sairmeuse had returned to France;
he had not yet had time to shake the dust of exile from his feet, and
already his imagination saw enemies on every side.
He had been at Sairmeuse only two days, and yet he unhesitatingly
accepted the venomous reports which Chupin poured into his ears.
The suspicions which he was endeavoring to make Martial share were
cruelly unjust.
At the moment when the duke accused the baron of conspiring against the
house of Sairmeuse, that unfortunate man was weeping at the bedside of
his son, who was, he believed, at the point of death.
Maurice was indeed dangerously ill.
His excessively nervous organization had succumbed before the rude
assaults of destiny.
When, in obedience to M. Lacheneur’s imperative order, he left the grove
on the Reche, he lost the power of reflecting calmly and deliberately
upon the situation.
Marie-Anne’s incomprehensible obstinacy, the insults he had received
from the marquis, and Lacheneur’s feigned anger were mingled in
inextricable confusion, forming one immense, intolerable misfortune, too
crushing for his powers of resistance.
The peasants who met him on his homeward way were struck by his singular
demeanor, and felt convinced that some great catastrophe had just
befallen the house of the Baron d’Escorval.
Some bowed; others spoke to him, but he did not see or hear them.
Force of habit--that physical memory which mounts guard when the mind is
far away--brought him back to his home.
His features were so distorted with suffering that Mme. d’Escorval, on
seeing him, was seized with a most sinister presentiment, and dared not
address him.
He spoke first.
“All is over!” he said, hoarsely, “but do not be worried, mother; I have
some courage, as you shall see.”
He did, in fact, seat himself at the table with a resolute air. He ate
even more than usual; and his father noticed, without alluding to it,
that he drank much more wine than usual.
He was very pale, his eyes glittered, his gestures were excited, and his
voice was husky. He talked a great deal, and even jested.
“Why will he not weep,” thought Mme. d’Escorval; “then I should not be
so much alarmed, and I could try to comfort him.”
This was Maurice’s last effort. When dinner was over he went to his
room, and when his mother, who had gone again and again to listen at his
door, finally decided to enter his chamber, she found him lying upon the
bed, muttering incoherently.
She approached him. He did not appear to recognize or even to see her.
She spoke to him. He did not seem to hear. His face was scarlet, his
lips were parched. She took his hand; it was burning; and still he was
shivering, and his teeth were chattering as if with cold.
A mist swam before the eyes of the poor woman; she feared she was about
to faint; but, summoning all her strength, she conquered her weakness
and, dragging herself to the staircase, she cried:
“Help! help! My son is dying!”
With a bound M. d’Escorval reached his son’s chamber, looked at him
and dashed out again, summoned a servant, and ordered him to gallop to
Montaignac and bring a physician without a moment’s delay.
There was, indeed, a doctor at Sairmeuse, but he was the most stupid
of men--a former surgeon in the army, who had been dismissed for
incompetency. The peasants shunned him as they would the plague; and in
case of sickness always sent for the cure. M. d’Escorval followed their
example, knowing that the physician from Montaignac could not arrive
until nearly morning.
Abbe Midon had never frequented the medical schools, but since he had
been a priest the poor so often asked advice of him that he applied
himself to the study of medicine, and, aided by experience, he had
acquired a knowledge of the art which would have won him a diploma from
the faculty anywhere.
At whatever hour of the day or night parishioners came to ask his
assistance, he was always ready--his only answer: “Let us go at once.”
And when the people of the neighborhood met him on the road with his
little box of medicine slung over his shoulder, they took off their hats
respectfully and stood aside to let him pass. Those who did not respect
the priest honored the man.
For M. d’Escorval, above all others, Abbe Midon would make haste. The
baron was his friend; and a terrible apprehension seized him when he saw
Mme. d’Escorval at the gate watching for him. By the way in which
she rushed to meet him, he thought she was about to announce some
irreparable misfortune. But no--she took his hand, and, without uttering
a word, she led him to her son’s chamber.
The condition of the poor youth was really very critical; the abbe
perceived this at a glance, but it was not hopeless.
“We will get him out of this,” he said, with a smile that reawakened
hope.
And with the coolness of an old practitioner, he bled him freely, and
ordered applications of ice to his head.
In a moment all the household were busied in fulfilling the cure’s
orders. He took advantage of the opportunity to draw the baron aside in
the embrasure of a window.
“What has happened?” he asked.
“A disappointment in love,” M. d’Escorval replied, with a despairing
gesture. “Monsieur Lacheneur has refused the hand of his daughter, which
I asked in behalf of my son. Maurice was to have seen Marie-Anne to-day.
What passed between them I do not know. The result you see.”
The baroness re-entered the room, and the two men said no more. A truly
funereal silence pervaded the apartment, broken only by the moans of
Maurice.
His excitement instead of abating had increased in violence. Delirium
peopled his brain with phantoms; and the name of Marie-Anne, Martial de
Sairmeuse and Chanlouineau dropped so incoherently from his lips that it
was impossible to read his thoughts.
How long that night seemed to M. d’Escorval and his wife, those only
know who have counted each second beside the sick-bed of some loved one.
Certainly their confidence in the companion in their vigil was great;
but he was not a regular physician like the other, the one whose coming
they awaited.
Just as the light of the morning made the candles turn pale, they heard
the furious gallop of a horse, and soon the doctor from Montaignac
entered.
He examined Maurice carefully, and, after a short conference with the
priest:
“_I_ see no immediate danger,” he declared. “All that can be done
has been done. The malady must be allowed to take its course. I will
return.”
He did return the next day and many days after, for it was not until a
week had passed that Maurice was declared out of danger.
Then he confided to his father all that had taken place in the grove
on the Reche. The slightest detail of the scene had engraved itself
indelibly upon his memory. When the recital was ended:
“Are you quite sure,” asked his father, “that you correctly understood
Marie-Anne’s reply? Did she tell you that if her father gave his consent
to your marriage, she would refuse hers?”
“Those were her very words.”
“And still she loves you?”
“I am sure of it.”
“You were not mistaken in Monsieur Lacheneur’s tone when he said to
you: ‘Go, you little wretch! do you wish to render all my precautions
useless?’”
“No.”
M. d’Escorval sat for a moment in silence.
“This passes comprehension,” he murmured at last. And so low that his
son could not hear him, he added: “I will see Lacheneur to-morrow; this
mystery must be explained.”