"Yes, he has been here for more than a fortnight. The doctor forbade his entering. Will you not see him now?"
The invalid assented languidly. He had perhaps spoken too much and overtaxed his strength.
The joy of Count Tristan was deep and voiceless when he was once more permitted to embrace his son. He was so fearful of touching upon some painful chord, and of again hearing those frantic ravings, that he had no language at his command. Maurice, in a faint tone, inquired after his grandmother and Bertha, and then seemed too weary to prolong the conversation. Glad at heart, as the count could not but feel, at the wonderful improvement in his son, he was ill at ease in his presence, and seemed always to have some haunting dread upon his mind. It was a relief when the doctor forbade his patient to converse, and hinted that the count should make his visits very brief.
The next day, when M. de Bois entered, Maurice greeted him in a mournful tone.
"She did not come last night. I watched for her in vain. The 'sister,' yonder, went as usual at midnight, and came back in the morning; but, during the night, a stranger took her place."
What could M. de Bois answer? He gave a sigh of sympathy, but did not attempt to make any comment.
"She knows perhaps that my father is here, and she will come no more for fear of being discovered. But I have seen her, Gaston! I know I have seen her! I could not have lived if I had not. And her countenance was not sad,—it wore a look of patient hope that lent a glory to her face. The very remembrance of that saint-like expression put to shame the despair to which I have yielded."
"I—I—I—am"—
M. de Bois could get no further. If he meant to use any argument to persuade Maurice that it was only a vision, conjured up by his fevered imagination, which he had seen, the attempt would have been vain. Maurice clung to the belief that he had really beheld Madeleine, and that conviction soothed, strengthened, and reanimated him.