"Better—much better!"
"You are hungry, I doubt not?"
"No; I feel myself too weak for that. What I have suffered most cruelly from has been want of air. At last I felt suffocating, strangling, choking. Oh, it was dreadful!"
"But now?"
"I live again. I come forth from the very tomb itself; and that, too, thanks to you!"
"And these cuts upon your poor bleeding hands! For God's sake, what have they done to you?"
"Nicholas and Calabash, not daring to attack me openly a second time, fastened me up in my chamber to allow me to perish of hunger in it. I tried to prevent their nailing up my shutters, and my sister chopped my fingers with a hatchet."
"The monsters! They wished to make it appear that you had died of sickness. Your mother had spread the report of your being in a hopeless state. Your mother, my man,—your own mother!"
"Hold!" cried Martial, with bitterness; "mention her not." Then for the first time remarking the wet garments and singular state of La Louve's attire, he added, "But what has happened to you? Your hair is dripping wet; you have only your underclothes on; and they are drenched through."
"No matter, no matter what has happened to me, since you are saved. Oh, yes,—saved!"