“And if that does not succeed?”
The doctor answered only with a shrug of the shoulders, which showed his inability to do more.
“I understand your silence, Herve,” murmured Noel. “Alas! you told me last night she was lost.”
“Scientifically, yes; but I do not yet despair. It is hardly a year ago that the father-in-law of one of our comrades recovered from an almost identical attack; and I saw him when he was much worse than this; suppuration had set in.”
“It breaks my heart to see her in this state,” resumed Noel. “Must she die without recovering her reason even for one moment? Will she not recognise me, speak one word to me?”
“Who knows? This disease, my poor friend, baffles all foresight. Each moment, the aspect may change, according as the inflammation affects such or such a part of the brain. She is now in a state of utter insensibility, of complete prostration of all her intellectual faculties, of coma, of paralysis so to say; to-morrow, she may be seized with convulsions, accompanied with a fierce delirium.”
“And will she speak then?”
“Certainly; but that will neither modify the nature nor the gravity of the disease.”
“And will she recover her reason?”
“Perhaps,” answered the doctor, looking fixedly at his friend; “but why do you ask that?”