“Bah!” said Madame Geffroi, “I snap my fingers at it! Besides, where would it come from? Do you imagine that any one from there”—she indicated Pézé over her shoulder—“would venture to come poking into my house? Holy Virgin of virgins, no! But what would inconvenience me would be a corpse in my loft; that would compromise me! No, the young man must be brought in. Come, up with you, my good man!” And, feeling that he was in the hands of some higher intelligence, Gilbert suffered himself to be waved in front of her up the ladder.
In the loft it was dimmer still. Gilbert stood like a statue when he got there, deprived of all volition; he only felt stupidly that he could never go near that prone, silent figure again. And yet he knew that he was there for the express purpose of doing so. Behind him Madame Geffroi scrambled on to the floor; he never turned his head nor offered to help her. She walked past him, and he saw her bend over Louis. But his own eyes were fixed on the little circular window, and his thoughts followed them, racing round and round its circumference like a squirrel in a cage. Then he perceived his hostess beckoning to him. His feet carried him over to her.
“He is quite quiet now,” she said in a whisper. “See, I will help you carry him to the top of the ladder. But you will have to take him down it alone, only I will stand at the bottom.”
It was a real surprise to Gilbert to find that not very long afterwards he was standing in the midst of a little, very tidy room with a diamond paned casement, where a small white bed, ready prepared, lay along the wall.
“That’s right,” said Madame Geffroi approvingly, as Château-Foix deposited his unconscious kinsman upon it. She set down the candle, with which she had lighted him up the stairs, upon a table bearing a neat pile of bandages, a basin, a sponge, and other appliances. “Now I shall manage better alone. I am sorry that I have not a bed for you too.”
Gilbert, with relief, murmured something about the comfort of his former quarters. Not to be under the same roof would be something.
Madame Geffroi nodded. “You will find some food put out downstairs; take what you want. I will come to you in the morning.”
“You are very kind indeed, Madame,” said Château-Foix. “I do not know why you should do this.”
The lifeless tone of his thanks appeared to reawaken his hostess’s suspicions. She caught up the candle and held it to the level of his face. “You are sure that you are not ill, you?” she asked sharply. The fancy crossed Gilbert’s mind that she was more apprehensive than solicitous about his state of health, and he answered with a grim feeling approaching amusement that he was perfectly well, and turned to go. But at the doorway he stopped and bent a long look on the candle-lit bed, drawn by the very attraction of what his survey cost him. Then he went down the stairs and out of the farmhouse, to carry his agony back to the place where it had its birth.