Thanks to rest, care, sufficiency of nourishing diet, Morel was no longer the pale, careworn, haggard creature that had entered those walls; the tinge of health began to colour his before jaundiced cheek, but a melancholy smile, a fixed, motionless gaze, as though on some object for ever present to his mental view, proved too plainly that Reason had not entirely resumed her empire over him.
When the doctor entered, Morel was sitting at a table, imitating the movements of a lapidary at his wheel.
"I must work," murmured he, "and hard, too. Thirteen hundred francs! Ay, thirteen hundred is the sum required, or poor Louise will be dragged to a scaffold! That must not be! No, no, her father will work—work—work! Thirteen hundred francs! Right!"
"Morel, my good fellow," said the doctor, gently advancing towards him, "don't work so very hard; there is no occasion now, you know that you have earned the thirteen hundred francs you required to free Louise. See, here they are!" and with these words the doctor laid a handful of gold on the table.
"Saved! Louise saved!" exclaimed the lapidary, catching up the money, and hurrying towards the door; "then I will carry it at once to the notary."
"Come!" called out the doctor, in considerable trepidation, for well he knew the success of his experiment depended on the manner in which the mind of the lapidary received its first shock.
Scarcely had the doctor pronounced the signal than Louise sprang forwards, and presented herself at the door just as her father reached it. Bewildered and amazed, Morel let fall the gold he clutched in his hands, and retreated in visible surprise. For some minutes he continued gazing on his daughter with a stupefied and vacant stare, but by degrees his memory seemed to awaken, and, cautiously approaching her, he examined her features with a timid and restless curiosity.
Poor Louise, trembling with emotion, could scarcely restrain her tears; but a sign from the doctor made her exert herself to repress any manifestation of feeling calculated to disturb the progress of her parent's thoughts.
Meanwhile Morel, bending over his daughter, and peering, with uneasy scrutiny, into her countenance, became very pale, pressed his hands to his brows, and then wiped away the large damp drops that had gathered there. Drawing closer and closer to the agitated girl, he strove to speak to her, but the words expired on his lips. His paleness increased, and he gazed around him with the bewildered air of a person awakening from a troubled dream.
"Good, good!" whispered the doctor to Louise; "now, when I say 'Come,' throw yourself into his arms and call him 'father!'"