“But what are we going to do?” resumed Madame Bélisaire. “This poor boy must have better care than we can give him.”
A neighbor spoke. “He must go to the hospital, as the physician said.”
“Hush, hush! not so loud!” said Bélisaire, pointing to the bed; “I’m afraid he heard you.”
“What of that? He is not your brother, nor your son; and it would be better for you in every respect.”
“But he is my friend,” answered Bélisaire, proudly; and in his tone was so much honest devotion that his wife’s eyes filled with tears.
The neighbors shrugged their shoulders and went away. After their departure, the room looked less cold and less bare.
Jack had heard all that was said. In spite of his weakness he slept little, and lay with his face turned to the wall, with eyes wide open. If that blank surface, wrinkled and tarnished like the face of a very old woman, could have spoken, it would have said that in those pitiful eyes but one expression could have been seen, that of utter and overwhelming despair. He never complained, however; he even tried, at times, to smile at his stout nurse, when she brought him his tisanes. The long and solitary days passed away in this inaction and helplessness. Why was he not strong in health and body like the people about him, and yet for whom did he wish to labor? His mother had left him, Cécile had deserted him. The faces of these two women haunted him day and night. When Charlotte’s gay and indifferent smile faded away, the delicate features of Cécile appeared before him, veiled in the mystery of her strange refusal; and the youth lay there incapable of a word or a gesture, while his pulses beat with accelerated force, and his hollow cough shook him from head to foot.
The day after this conversation at Jack’s bedside, Madame Bélisaire was much startled, on entering the room, to find him, tall and gaunt, sitting in front of the fire. “Why are you out of your bed?” she asked with severity.
“I am going to the hospital, my kind friend; it is impossible for me to stay here any longer. Do not attempt to detain me, for go I will.”
“But, Mr. Jack, you cannot walk there, weak as you are.”