Absurd little tragedy! Was it not Louis who, less than a month later, was descried by the Marquise galloping wildly round a frosty meadow on the very steed to which he owed his discomfiture? Was it not Lucienne who was shortly afterwards discovered in tears because Louis, scarcely convalescent, had teased her so horribly? And it was certainly he himself who, that same winter, settled a fierce dispute with the whilom invalid by the arbitrament of force in the shrubbery. . . . And, for the first time, the almost forgotten blow which had left him victor was a regret to him, for at the present moment it seemed an outrage. Château-Foix smiled at himself; smiled too, as, at the sudden withdrawal of the moonlight, he bent forward and put a light kiss on Louis’ forehead.
It was about six o’clock when Gilbert awoke the next morning, but as he raised himself on his elbow and looked down at his cousin, his hopes of quitting their hiding-place that day received their death-blow. For Louis was moaning faintly, moving his head from side to side with restless regularity. The Marquis got to his knees and bent uneasily over him. It was plain that he was in a high fever, and there was nothing for Château-Foix to do but to resign himself to a day of waiting.
The Vicomte’s condition scarcely showed a change through the whole of that long day. The Marquis sat by him, unable to do more than to keep him fairly quiet, and to force him once or twice to drink some milk which, with a loaf of bread, had mysteriously appeared in the shed below. He was becoming seriously alarmed as to his state when, about midday, the owner of the little farm suddenly paid her tenants a visit. She was a small, alert, black-eyed scold of forty-five or thereabouts, and as her rather formidable head appeared at the top of the ladder the Marquis became more fully conscious of the magnitude of his victory of the night before. But perhaps she had come to revoke her permission. He rose from his place and waited.
“You may come and take this basket,” announced the woman in her harsh, penetrating voice. “I have brought you something to eat, and there is another pitcher of milk down below.” As she scrambled on to the loft floor Gilbert began to thank her, but she cut him short. “Là là, that is enough. Time enough to thank me when you get safely out of my loft, without setting the hay on fire or trampling it all flat.” Here her restless little eyes fell on the prostrate form of Louis. “How is the other? He is lazy? He takes his ease, hein?” She began to wade through the hay.
“No,” returned the Marquis, following her, basket in hand. “I am afraid——”
“Ah, mon Dieu!” exclaimed Madame Geffroi, stopping short. She was evidently taken aback. Even in his present plight Louis, as usual, owed much to his looks. “Ah, the poor young man!” She knelt down by the Vicomte and possessed herself of his wrist. “Fever,” she remarked, shaking her head; and then, looking up at Château-Foix: “Show me the wound.”
Gilbert complied, quite expecting to hear his bandaging condemned. But Madame Geffroi touched the wounded shoulder gently with her coarse, red, peasant’s fingers, and as gently drew the slashed coat over it again. “Well enough for a man,” she remarked trenchantly. “You shall have some more linen—but next time I will bandage it myself, I think.”
It was such a relief to see a woman in his place that the Marquis clung to her opinion, and asked her, rather helplessly, what he ought to do. She told him, “Nothing, till the fever goes,” and they both looked at the unconscious young man in silence, she sitting back on her heels, Gilbert standing gloomily beside her. Louis tossed his head from side to side, and flung out an arm violently into the hay, with a heavy sigh. The Marquis thought that he heard the sigh echoed; at any rate, Madame Geffroi put her hand for an instant on the burning forehead. “Poor boy, poor boy!” she said almost softly, and, getting to her feet, retired as abruptly as she had come.
The slow hours crawled on with the shifting sunlight, until about three o’clock Louis ceased tossing and sank into a sort of stupor. Château-Foix was consequently a good deal surprised and alarmed when, after lying motionless for about an hour, he suddenly sat bolt upright in the hay and addressed some unknown person by name.