"Better and better."
"Are you hungry?"
"No, I am too weak. I suffered most from want of air; finally, I suffocated! it was frightful!"
"And now?"
"I live again! I come out from the tomb; and I come out—thanks to you."
"But your hands, your poor hands! these wounds? Who did this?—curse them!"
"Nicholas and Calabash, not daring to attack me openly a second time, shut me in my chamber, and left me to die with hunger. I tried to prevent them from nailing up my window—my sister cut my hands with the hatchet!"
"The monsters! they wished to have it believed that you were dead from some sickness; your mother had already spread the report that you were in a dying state. Your mother, my man, your mother!"
"Hold! do not speak to me of her," said Martial, bitterly; then, for the first time, remarking the wet clothes and strange attire of La Louve, he cried, "What has happened to you?—your hair is streaming with water. You are without your dress."
"What matters it? You are saved—saved!"