"I left it in the entry, sir."
The count looked up at the sound of that voice. Immediately recognizing one whose association in his mind with Madeleine struck the chord which vibrated most readily, he exclaimed, in a piteous tone, "Madeleine! Madeleine! Why don't she come? Wont Madeleine come soon?"
Maurice, Bertha, and Mrs. Lawkins were filled with consternation at these words, which they imagined must arouse the suspicions of the countess; but she had not condescended to waste sufficient attention upon the domestic her son had hired to perceive that Count Tristan's ejaculations had any connection with her presence. The disdainful lady's eyes sparkled with anger at the unexpected mention of one whose name she desired never more to hear. She drew her chair close to Count Tristan's and said in harsh accents,—
"I trust, my son, that you have no wish ungratified? When your mother is by your side, whom else can you desire?"
Count Tristan was too easily cowed by her manner to venture a reply, even if his disordered intellect could have suggested any appropriate answer.
"I rejoice at your restoration to me," continued his mother; "and the filial duty I have the right to expect prompts me to believe that you also rejoice at our reunion."
The invalid looked very far from rejoicing; but the countess solaced herself by interpreting his silence into an affirmative.
From that time he never breathed Madeleine's name in his mother's presence; but those who watched beside him, often heard it murmured when he slept, or just as he wakened, before full consciousness was restored.
From the day that he returned to the hotel, he sank into a state of deep dejection. He would sit or lie for hours with his eyes wide open, without apparently seeing or hearing what passed around him, while an expression of despair overshadowed his deeply furrowed countenance.