Again she moistened his lips with the cordial, and this time he was able to swallow some drops of it. He made a slight attempt to speak, and as the sister bent her ear to his lips, he whispered faintly, ‘Tell him to come back—tomorrow—to-morrow!’
She repeated the words to Gerald, who, feeling that his presence any longer there might be hurtful, slowly and silently stepped from the room, and descended to the street.
Late as it was, a considerable crowd was assembled before the door in front of the house; their attitude of silent and respectful anxiety showed the deep interest felt in the sick man’s state; and although no name was spoken, the frequent recurrence of the words ‘he’ and ‘his’ evinced how absorbingly all thoughts were concentrated upon one individual. Nor was it only of one class in society the crowd was composed. Mirabeau’s admirers and followers were of every rank and every section of politicians; and, strangely enough, men whose public animosities had set them widely apart from each other were here seen exchanging their last tidings of the sick-room, and alternating and balancing their hopes and fears of his condition.
‘Jostinard calls the malady cerebral absorption,’ said one, ‘as though intense application had produced an organic change.’
‘Lessieux holds that the disease was produced by those mercurial baths he used to take to stimulate him on occasions of great public display,’ said another.
‘There is reason to believe it a family complaint of some sort,’ broke in—a third; ‘the Bailli de Mirabeau sank under pure exhaustion, as if the machine had actually worn out.’
‘Pardie!’ cried out a rough-looking man in a working dress; ‘it is hard that we cannot repair him with the strong materials the useless fellows are made of; there are full fifty in the Assembly we could give for one like him.’
‘You talk of maladies,’ broke in a loud, full voice, ‘and I tell you that the Citizen Riquetti is dying of poison—ay, start, or murmur if you will—I repeat it, of poison. Do we not all know how his power is feared, and his eloquence dreaded? Are we strangers to those who hate this great and good man?’
‘Great and good he is,’ murmured another; ‘when shall we see his equal?’
‘See, here is one who has been lately with him; let us learn his news.’