“Yes, but how am I going to get you up?” asked the Marquis. He had found a lantern on a peg, and was lighting it, for it was very dusk in the shed. Louis, utterly spent, leant against the upright ladder which led to the desired haven. His breath came in gasps, and the light, when it was obtained, showed the beads on his forehead. “I don’t see how you will ever get up,” repeated Château-Foix, eyeing him dubiously.
Louis glanced up. “It certainly does look steep enough . . . for the path to Heaven,” he remarked with difficulty. “Perhaps . . . if you were to give me an example . . . and a little help on the way. . .”
The suggestion was adopted, and by dint of a good deal of hauling the Vicomte managed to clamber on to the floor above, where, with an unfinished jest on his lips, he immediately collapsed in a second dead faint. After he had seen his face, Gilbert was only surprised that he had held out so long.
The loft, not very large, was lighted by a round aperture at the farther side, and the hay was scarcely more than a carpeting to the floor, except about midway, against the wall, where it rose in an untidy pile to the roof. The Marquis, after a brief survey, lifted his insensible cousin once more in his arms, and carried him over to the other side of their refuge. As he picked up the lantern afterwards he saw that his hands were smeared with his blood. He descended into the yard, got a bucket of water from the well, and by the light of the lantern set to work to investigate the Vicomte’s injury.
After a little hesitation he began with his knife carefully to cut through the collar and the coat-sleeve. Louis still lay motionless. Gilbert next attacked his shirt, but as it had stuck in one place to the wound he was obliged to pull it away, and, gently as he did it, the pain of the operation was evidently severe enough to bring Saint-Ermay out of his swoon. As he opened his eyes the Marquis paused, with a mute question in his glance.
“Go on,” said Louis, with a grimace. “Yes, it hurts damnably, but I am sure that your intentions are good.”
With that he shut his eyes again, and Château-Foix went on with his ministrations. The stab, just below the left collar-bone, was sufficiently deep, though in itself, thought Gilbert, scarcely dangerous. He was not anatomist enough to realise how near it had come to being mortal. The palpable loss of blood impressed him most. As he was bathing the wound Louis suddenly opened his eyes again.
“Gilbert,” he said in an odd voice, “you should not do this. I wish you had left me on the road.”
The words woke in Gilbert’s mind an echo of Louis’ protestation in the bedroom at the Etats-Généraux on the night of his release, and of his own reception of it. Well, it was different now, thank God!
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said cheerfully—and even as he said it something whispered at the back of his mind, “Supposing you had not been mistaken. . . .” He paused in his work and looked down at his cousin. Louis’ eyes, a little sunk in his white face, met his full.