They carried her into the first bed-room they came to and laid her on the bed.
“You have forgotten the most important thing of all,” said Pepa. “To undo her stays.”
“To be sure. How stupid of us!”
And, as he spoke, Don Pedro cut the laces with his pocket-knife. The village doctor now came in; he spoke of congestion of the brain, and regarded the case as serious. A messenger was at once despatched to bring the most celebrated consulting physician of Madrid. Presently, however, an improvement was evident; María turned over, opened her eyes, and breathed more easily. If it were but a fainting fit after all.
But María as she recovered her faculties was evidently delirious; she took no heed of where she was or of those who stood by her side, not recognising her husband. After talking feebly but wildly for a few minutes she fell asleep; silence, perfect silence, was indispensable. The doctor gave some instructions and prescriptions.
“Now,” he said, “leave her in silence and darkness. There is at any rate no immediate danger; but you must not allow the slightest sound in this room or in those adjoining; and she is better alone than with more than one person in the room.” He went away.
Pepa with her finger to her lips enjoined silence. Leon and the Marquis Fúcar stood speechless, gazing at the patient. At the end of half an hour Pepa said:
“She is sound asleep and seems to be comfortable. When she wakes I will come and sit with her; I will see that she has everything she needs.”
“No, no,” Leon interposed eagerly. “I beg—I entreat you not to come into the room at all.” Pepa bowed her head and she and her father went away on tiptoe.
Leon sat down by the bed. He was still under the influence of the horror and alarm of the first shock, and even now had no clear idea of the position in which he and his wife stood to each other. María lay still, sleeping as if she were quite tired out; the hapless husband looked vaguely round the room. He sighed. There was something eerie in the air. Presently Pepa returned through a door concealed by some hangings; Leon looked up, startled and vexed; but she came nearer evidently puzzled and inquisitive. She was paler even than María—as pale as death. Her footfall was inaudible on the thick carpet and she might have been a ghost. She took no notice of Leon’s anxious gesture of warning but came close to the bed, and looked down fixedly at the sleeping woman as if she were studying the most interesting, but at the same time the most appalling, object in the universe. At her heels crept Monina, as softly as a kitten that steals in and out, and clutching at her mother’s skirts in visible alarm, she pointed to the bed and whispered: “Big dolly dead.”