“The third time?” cried Mrs. Billet, awaking from her dulness. “Do you hear that, my man, they bleed her for the third time.”
“Woman, this would not have happened had you looked after your daughter closer,” said the farmer in a stern voice.
He went to his room, from which he had been absent three months while Pitou entered the sick room.
Pitou was astonished but he would have felt more so if he had guessed that the doctor called him in as a moral remedy.
The doctor had noticed two names as used by the girl in her frenzy, Ange Pitou and Isidore Charny, and he soon distinguished that one was a friend’s and the other a dearer one. He concluded that Pitou was the lovers’ confidant and that there would be no inconvenience in the gallant’s friend being there to speak with the patient on the mutual acquaintance.
Everybody knew down here that Valence Charny had been killed at Versailles and that his eldest brother had called away Isidore on the next evening.
That night Pitou found Catherine fainted on the high road. When she revived on the farm, it was to be in a fever, and she raved of some one riding away whom the doctor judged to be Isidore Charny.
The greatest need to a brain-stricken invalid is calm. To learn about her lover would best calm Catherine, and she would ask the news of their friend, Pitou.
On seeing the good effect of the bleeding, the doctor stationed Mother Clement by her side, with the strange recommendation for her to get some sleep, and beckoned Pitou to follow him into the kitchen.
“Cheer up, mother,” said he to Mrs. Billet who was mooning in the chimney corner, “she is going on as well as possible.”