"Yes, yes, I recollect now; and when I was taken ill I remember I was talking with my daughter, and some other person,—who could it be? Ah, now I know!—a kind, good man, named M. Rodolph, who saved me from being arrested. Afterwards, strange to say, I cannot recall a single circumstance."
"Your illness was attended with an entire absence of memory," said the doctor.
"And in whose house am I now?"
"In that of your friend, M. Rodolph," interposed Germain, hastily; "it was thought that country air would be serviceable to you, and promote your recovery."
"Excellent!" said the doctor, in a low tone; then speaking to a keeper who stood near him, he said, "Send the coach around to the garden-gate to prevent the necessity of taking our recovered patient through the different courts, filled with those less fortunate than himself."
As frequently occurs in cases of madness, Morel had not the least idea or recollection of the aberration of intellect under which he had suffered.
Shortly afterwards, Morel, with his wife and daughter, ascended the fiacre, attended also by a surgeon of the establishment, who, for precaution's sake, was charged to see him comfortably settled in his abode ere he left him; and in this order, and followed by a second carriage, conveying their friends, the lapidary quitted Bicêtre without entertaining the most remote suspicion of ever having entered it.
"And do you consider this poor man effectually cured?" asked Madame Georges of the doctor, as he led her to the coach.
"I hope so, at least; and I wished to leave him wholly to the beneficial effects of rejoining his family, from whom it would now be almost dangerous to attempt to separate him; added to which, one of my pupils will remain with him and give the necessary directions for his regimen and treatment. I shall visit him myself daily, until his cure is confirmed, for not only do I feel much interested in him, but he was most particularly recommended to me when he first came here by the chargé d'affaires of the Grand Duke of Gerolstein."
A look of intelligence was exchanged between Germain and his mother.