The words were repeated on every side, and I led De Meudon forth leaning on my arm; for already, the excitement over, a stupid indifference crept over him, and he walked on by my side without speaking.
I confess it was not without trepidation, and many a backward glance towards the old ruin, that I turned homeward to our cabin. There was that in their looks at which I trembled for my companion; nor do I yet know why they spared him at that moment.
CHAPTER XI. TOO LATE.
The day which followed the events I have mentioned was a sad one to me. The fatigue and the excitement together brought on fever with De Meudon. His head became attacked, and before evening his faculties began to wander. All the strange events of his checkered life were mixed up in his disturbed intellect; and he talked on for hours about Italy, and Egypt, the Tuileries, La Vendee, and Ireland, without ceasing. The entire of the night he never slept, and the next day the symptoms appeared still more aggravated. The features of his insanity were wilder and less controllable. He lost all memory of me; and sometimes the sight of me at his bedside threw him into most terrific paroxysms of passion; while at others, he would hold my hand for hours together, and seem to feel my presence as something soothing. His frequent recurrence to the scene in the churchyard showed the deep impression it had made upon his mind, and how fatally it had influenced the worst symptoms of his malady.
Thus passed two days and nights. On the third morning, exhaustion seemed to have worn him into a false calm. His wild, staring eye had become heavier, his movements less rapid; the spot of color had left his cheek; the mouth was pinched up and rigid; and a flatness of the muscles of the face betokened complete depression. He spoke seldom, and with a voice hoarse and cavernous, but no longer in the tone of wild excitement as before. I sat by his bedside still and in silence, my own sad thoughts my only company. As it grew later, the sleepless days and nights I had passed, and the stillness of the sickroom, overcame me, and I slept.
I awoke with a start; some dreamy consciousness of neglect had flashed across me, and I sat up. I peeped into the bed, and started back with amazement. I looked again, and there lay De Meudon, on the outside of the clothes, dressed in his full uniform,—the green coat and white facing, the large gold epaulettes, the brilliant crosses on the breast; his plumed chapeau lay at one side of him, and his sabre at the other. He lay still and motionless. I held the candle near his face, and could mark a slight smile that curled his cold lip, and gave to his wan and wasted features something of their former expression.
“Oui, mon cher,” said he, in a weak whisper, as he took my hand and kissed it, “c'est bien moi.” And then added, “It was another of my strange fancies to put on these once more before I died; and when I found you sleeping, I arose and did so. I have changed something since I wore this last: it was at a ball at Cambacérès.”
My joy at hearing him speak once more with full possession of his reason, was damped by the great change a few hours had worked in his appearance. His skin was cold and clammy; a gluey moisture rested on his cheek; and his teeth were dark and discolored. A slimy froth, too, was ever rising to his lips as he spoke; while at every respiration his chest heaved and waved like a stormy sea.
“You are thirsty, Charles,” said I, stooping over him to wet his lips.