DR. GRIFFON.
Francois and Amandine had just carried Fleur-de-Marie into the kitchen
near the fire, when Saint Remy and Dr. Griffon, who had crossed over
in Nicholas's boat, entered the house. While the children stirred up
the fire and threw on some dry fagots, which, soon kindling, gave out
a cheerful blaze, Dr. Griffon exercised all his skill to restore the
girl.
"The poor child is hardly seventeen," cried the count, profoundly
affected; then, turning toward the doctor, he said, "Well, what do you
think, my friend?"
"I can hardly feel the pulse; but, what is very singular, the skin of
the face is not colored blue in this subject, as is ordinarily the
case in asphyxia from submersion," answered the doctor with
imperturbable coolness, looking at Fleur-de-Marie with an air
profoundly meditative.
Dr. Griffon was a tall, thin man, very pale, and completely bald,
except two very scanty tufts of black hair, most carefully gathered
from behind, and laid flat on his forehead; his face, wrinkled and
furrowed by hard study, expressed intelligence reflection, and
coldness.
Of immense knowledge, of consummate experience, a skillful and
renowned practitioner, principal physician of a large hospital, Dr.
Griffon had but one defect--that of making, if we may express it, a
complete oversight of the patient, and only attending to the disease:
young or old, male or female, rich or poor, no matter; he thought only
of the medical fact, more or less curious or interesting in a
scientific point of view, which the _subject_ offered.
For him there only existed _subjects_.
"What a charming face! How handsome she is, notwithstanding this
frightful pallor!" said Saint Remy, contemplating Fleur-de-Marie with
sadness. "Have you ever seen, my dear doctor, features more regular or
more lovely? And so young--so young!"
"The age is nothing," said the physician, roughly; "no more than the
presence of water in the lungs, which formerly was thought to be
mortal. They were most grossly deceived: the admirable experiments of
Goodwin, of the famous Goodwin, have proved it."
"But, doctor--"
"But it is a fact," answered M. Griffon, absorbed by the love of his
art. "To ascertain the presence of a foreign liquid in the lungs,
Goodwin plunged some cats and dogs into a tub of ink for some seconds,
drew them out living, and dissected my gentlemen some time afterward.
Well, he convinced himself that the ink had penetrated into the lungs,
and that the presence of liquid in the organs of respiration does not
cause death."
The count knew the physician to be an excellent man at heart, but that
his frenzied passion for the sciences often made him appear
hard-hearted and almost cruel.
"Have you, at least, any hope?" asked he, with impatience.
"The extremities of the subject are very cold," said the doctor;
"there is but little hope."
"Oh, to die at her age, poor child--it is frightful!"
"The pupil fixed, dilated," answered the immovable doctor, raising
with his finger the moveless eyelid of Fleur-de-Marie.
"Strange man," cried the count, almost with indignation; "one would
think you without feeling; and yet I have seen you watch by my bedside
night after night. If I had been your brother, you could not have been
more devoted."
The doctor, quite occupied in administering to Fleur-de-Marie,
answered the count, without looking at him, and with settled calmness,
"Do you believe that one meets every day with such a malignant fever,
so marvelously complicated, so curious to study, as the one you had?
It was admirable, my good friend, admirable! Stupor, delirium,
twitchings of the sinews, syncopes--your deadly fever united the most
varied symptoms. Your constitution was also a rare thing, very rare,
and eminently interesting; you were also affected, in a partial and
momentary manner, with paralysis. If it were only for this fact, your
disease had a right to all my attention; you presented to me a
magnificent study; for, frankly, my dear friend, all I desire in this
world is to come across just such another fine case--but one has no
such luck twice."
[Illustration: FEELING FOR THE BEATING OF THE PULSE]
The count shrugged his shoulders impatiently. It was at this moment
that Martial descended, leaning on the arm of La Louve, who had, as
the reader knows, thrown over her wet clothes a plaid cloak belonging
to Calabash.
Struck with the pale looks of the lover of La Louve, and remarking his
hands covered with coagulated blood, the count cried, "Who is this
man?"
"_My husband!_" answered La Louve, looking at Martial with an
expression of happiness and noble pride impossible to describe.
"You have a good intrepid wife, sir," said the count to him. "I saw
her save this unfortunate child with rare courage."
"Oh, yes, sir; good and intrepid is _my wife!_" answered Martial,
dwelling on the last words, and looking at La Louve in his turn with
an air at once tender and affectionate. "Yes, intrepid; for she also
saved my life!"
"Yours!" said the astonished count.
"See his hands, his poor hands!" said La Louve, wiping the tears which
softened the indignant sparkling of her eyes.
"Oh, this is horrible!" cried the count. "This poor fellow has had his
hands literally chopped up. Look, doctor!"
Turning his head slightly, and looking over his shoulder at the
numerous wounds which Calabash had made, the doctor said, "Open and
shut your hand."
Martial executed this movement with much pain.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders, continued to occupy himself with
Fleur-de-Marie, and said disdainfully, and as if with regret, "Those
wounds are absolutely nothing serious. None of the tendons are
injured; in a week the subject can use his hands."
"Then, sir, my husband will not be a cripple?" cried La Louve with
gratitude.
The doctor shook his head.
"And La Goualeuse will live, will she not?" asked La Louve. "Oh, she
must live, my husband and I owe her so much!" Then turning toward
Martial, "Poor little thing! There is she of whom I spoke--she who
perhaps will be the cause of our happiness--she who gave me the idea
of telling you all I have said. See what chance has done, that I
should save her--and here too!"
"She is our Providence!" said Martial, struck with the beauty of La
Goualeuse. "What an angelic face! Oh, she will live! will she not,
doctor?"
"I don't know," answered the physician; "but, in the first place, she
ought to remain here. Can she have the necessary attentions?"
"Here!" cried La Louve. "Why, they murder here!"
"Hush, hush!" said Martial.
The count and doctor looked at La Louve with surprise.
"This house has a bad reputation; it surprises me the less," whispered
the physician to Saint Remy.
"You have, then, been the victim of violence?" asked the count. "Who
wounded you in this manner?" "It is nothing, sir. I had a dispute
here, a fight ensued, and I have been wounded. But this girl cannot
remain in the house," added he, in a gloomy manner. "I shall not
remain myself, neither my wife nor my brother, nor my sister. We leave
the island never to return."
"Oh, what joy!" cried both the children.
"Then what must we do?" said the doctor, regarding Fleur-de-Marie. "It
is impossible to think of transporting this subject in this state of
prostration. Yet, happily, my house is close at hand, and my
gardener's wife and daughter will make excellent nurses. Since this
asphyxia from submersion interests you, you can overlook her
attendants, my dear Saint Remy, and I will come and see her every
day."
"And you play the part of a hard-hearted, unmerciful man," cried the
count, "when you have a most generous heart, as this proposition
proves."
"If the subject sinks, as is possible, there will be a most
interesting autopsy, which will allow me to confirm once more the
assertions of Goodwin."
"What you say is frightful!" said the count.
"For him who knows how to read it, the human body is a book where one
learns to save the life of the sick," said Dr. Griffon, stoically.
"However, you do good," said Saint Remy, bitterly; "that is the
important thing. What matters the cause, as long as the benefit
exists! Poor child, the more I look at her, the more she interests
me."
"And she deserves it, sir," cried La Louve, passionately, drawing
near.
"You know her?" said the count.
"Know her, sir? To her I owe the happiness of my life; in saving her I
have not done as much for her as she has done for me."
"And who is she?" asked the count.
"An angel, sir; all that is good in the world. Yes, although she is
dressed as a peasant girl there is not a grand lady who can talk as
well as she can, with her soft little voice, just like music. She is a
noble girl, and courageous and good."
"How did she fall in the water?"
"I do not know, sir."
"She is not a peasant girl, then?" asked the count.
"A peasant girl! Look at her small white hands, sir!"
"It is true," said Saint Remy. "What a singular mystery! But her name,
her family?"
"Come," said the doctor, interrupting the conversation, "the subject
must be carried to the boat."
Half an hour afterward, Fleur-de-Marie, who had not yet recovered her
senses, was taken to the physician's house, placed in a warm bed, and
maternally watched by the gardener's wife, assisted by La Louve. The
doctor promised Saint Remy, who was more and more interested in La
Goualeuse, to return the same evening to visit her.
Martial went to Paris with Francois, and Amandine, La Louve not being
willing to leave Fleur-de-Marie until she was out of danger.
The island remained deserted. We shall soon meet with its wretched
occupants at Bras-Rouge's, where they had agreed to meet La Chouette,
to murder the diamond dealer.
In the meanwhile we would conduct the reader to the appointment that
Tom, the brother of the Countess Macgregor, had made with the horrible
old woman, the Schoolmaster's accomplice.