He was attracted by the quality and peculiar color of the hair, and washing the stains from the head, examined the latter attentively.
"I never saw but one woman with hair like that, and she—wonder what the devil is in Lerouge, anyhow!—I suppose—hold on here! Let us see."
He had found a terrible gash in the scalp. Hastily obtaining his instruments, he skilfully lifted a bit of crushed skull.
As he did so he fancied there was a slight tremor in the slender body. He nervously tested the heart, the nostrils, the pulse, then breathed once more.
"Dame! It is imagination. That break would have killed an ox!"
Yet he took another careful look at the wound, cutting away some of the fair hair in order to get at the fracture. Then he made another experiment.
"Pardieu! she's alive," he whispered, hoarsely. "What's to be done? They're right. Jean! Jean! you'll never be a doctor! Never be anything but a d——d fool!"
But Jean Marot, if not a doctor, was a young man of action and resources. Even as he spoke he grabbed a sheet and a blanket from a cot in the corner, snatched a hat belonging to Massard's grisette from the wall, bundled the girl's clothes around the body the best he could, and ran to the window.
As he had anticipated would be the case, the cabman had disappeared.
He was fully aware of the risk he now ran; but above his sense of personal danger rose his sympathy and anxiety for the young girl.