She glanced around as she spoke, and saw that he was not there. An exclamation rose to her lips; the doctor checked her by a glance.
“Go back to Mère Marchette,” said he, “and say that I am cautioning Pierre— Stay, I will go myself. Wait here, Victor.”
He went back into the ward and passed down between the cots, from which eyes that the indifference of illness scarcely left human, watched him with faint curiosity. Mère Marchette was sitting up in bed, trembling with eagerness and excitement. All the reserve which she had maintained for weeks had been swept aside. The moment for which she had kept herself alive had come at last, and there was no longer any need to save her energy. Her eyes shone, a feverish glow was on her cheek, even her withered lips had taken on for the moment a wan and ghostly red. It seemed to the doctor, as he looked at her, as if all the vitality which remained in her feeble frame was being expended in a last quick fire.
“Ah,” he said, “I have been warning Pierre to be calm, when it is you to whom I should speak. Come, it will take only a moment, but I must give you treatment before I can let you see him.”
As he spoke he put his forefinger up to her forehead with a gesture he always used in hypnotizing her. Mère Marchette struggled a moment as if she could not yield to anything which delayed her reunion with Pierre; then she sank into a hypnotic sleep. The doctor leaned forward and spoke with an emphasis which he had never before used with his patient.
“When you awake,” he said, “you will see Pierre; the person I shall bring to you is your grandson. Remember,” he repeated, “it is Pierre who will come in with me.”
He breathed on her eyelids in the usual method of awaking her.
“Now,” he said, “I will bring him, Mère Marchette.”
He went back to where Victor and the nurse were awaiting him.