(4)
That night always seemed to Laurent like a bad dream, in which, however, he was only a spectator, not an actor. There was nothing he could do, beyond attending to the fire; indeed, M. Perrelet told him that he might as well go to sleep. But, though he lay down on the bed which had been brought in for him and placed at the other side of the room, he scarcely closed his eyes.
About dawn, seeing the surgeon, who had never left his patient's side, get up rather quickly and bend over him, he slipped off his bed and tiptoed across the room. But after a moment M. Perrelet lifted his head from L'Oiseleur's heart, and Laurent, prepared for the worst, could see that he looked relieved.
"Distinctly stronger," he murmured. "We shall do it yet. Give me that saucepan off the fire. I want some more hot bouillon and brandy."
His own face looked tired and haggard in the growing light, but there was no fatigue in his manner. And after the brandy, his head still lying in the crook of the doctor's arm, L'Oiseleur sighed, shut his lips tight, and moved that head a little with a faint suggestion of restlessness.
"Go round and turn the pillow over," commanded M. Perrelet in a low voice.
Secretly terrified, Laurent obeyed. He was persuaded that La Rocheterie would open his eyes just at that moment. But the dark lashes were down now as if they meant to stay there for ever.
"That will do," said M. Perrelet. "Go back to bed and try to get a little sleep. You will be wanted in the day—for there will be a day for him now, I think."
About eight o'clock, indeed, M. Perrelet was so well satisfied with his patient's condition that he left the room for a little. To Laurent's surprise he returned with Colonel Guitton. The latter, taking no notice of Laurent, went straight over to La Rocheterie's bed with the doctor, and stood there in silence.
"You said that he was better," he remarked after a moment. "He looks no better at all!" The disappointment in his tone almost amounted to annoyance.
"I told you it would be slow," replied M. Perrelet rather shortly.
The Colonel stooped. "I suppose he's not shamming by any chance?"
Laurent gave a movement. So did M. Perrelet.
"Shamming!" he exclaimed. "Do you think I am a . . . a greengrocer, Colonel? And I wish you would feel his pulse, and tell me how a man can simulate one like that!"
Colonel Guitton gave a sort of laugh. "You need not be so peppery, my dear Perrelet. I did not mean to cast any slur on your professional acumen. And, as to your patient, the charge of malingering would be a trifling one to bring against a man who has done what he has done.—Let me have a report of his progress, please, twice a day without fail," he finished curtly, and, turning on his heel, came in Laurent's direction.
"So you have elected to stay here, Monsieur le Comte, and play the Good Samaritan? Please remember that it is not my wish, and that when you change your mind you have only to ask to be moved."
Laurent had got the better of the strangling sensation which had afflicted him while the Bonapartist stood over Aymar de la Rocheterie (unhearing and unseeing though the latter was) and spoke of him like that. He was on fire, but coherently so, and having decided in the night exactly what he meant to say, he said it.
The Colonel heard him out. Then he shrugged his shoulders, remarked calmly, "Ah, a champion! Well, Monsieur de Courtomer, I am sorry for you!" and departed, M. Perrelet with him, leaving Laurent angry, dumbfounded, and thoroughly bewildered, not by his incredulity but by his inconsistency. How, if he was so concerned for La Rocheterie's life, so anxious to hear of his progress, could he speak of him with such utter contempt? If he had such an opinion of him why did he trouble to have him kept alive at all? In M. Perrelet's case he could see that he really cared, and he was, besides, a doctor, but the Colonel . . .
Then M. Perrelet returned, looking rather grim, and Laurent was immediately called upon to assist at the dressing of the patient's wounds—his first experience of the kind. Of this proceeding, indeed, L'Oiseleur himself betrayed little consciousness beyond moaning once or twice; but there was one matter of which Laurent, for his part, was even more acutely aware than of the injuries themselves. Each of M. de la Rocheterie's wrists, now seen for the first time, was encircled by a neat little bandage. After what the surgeon had said about ropes, it was not difficult to guess the reason for their presence, and it turned Laurent sick and cold. What ignominy had he suffered in that horrible wood, he, a gentleman and a hero?
The rest of the slow day was not free from anxiety, but as it wore on La Rocheterie's condition certainly improved and he became conscious for increasingly longer intervals, till at last, by the end of the afternoon, he was lying most of the time with his eyes open, though he seemed quite unaware of Laurent's presence, possibly even of the doctor's.
And when the night came which Laurent had been so dreading, he found that the responsibility for L'Oiseleur's life was not to rest entirely on his untried shoulders, since M. Perrelet was going to sleep in the château, not in his house in the village, and could be summoned at need by means of the sentry.
That was an immense relief. And Laurent did not have to summon him. The little flame of life, so anxiously tended, showed no flicker. La Rocheterie was very quiet, much as he had been during the day. Occasionally he would stir feebly or sigh; part of the time he seemed to be asleep. But even when his eyes were open they rested on his candle-lit surroundings, on the screen which had now been placed at the side of the bed, or on the watcher, with the same absence of interest, and he took what was given him with a similar indifference.
Perhaps, drained of blood as he was, he had lost for the time his hold on realities. And possibly, in the circumstances, this was as well. But the human body seemed to the newly initiated student a terrifyingly frail machine. What would Maman say if she could see M. de la Rocheterie now . . . if she could have seen both of them, brought together like this! Darling Maman! . . . and Laurent pondered at intervals, during that long night, whether his gaolers would let him send a letter to tell her that he was at least safe. Too safe, he would have said, but for that helpless and calumniated head on the pillow there!