"You will see them all soon. Neither the General nor Monsieur Martin was wounded. Duresnel was grazed slightly by a bayonet."
"And Castillon? And Duchemin?"
Madam Lebrenn exchanged a look of intelligence with her daughter-in-law, who had gone to put her child in his cradle, and answered, "We have as yet no news of those brave champions, Castillon and Duchemin."
"Then they must be badly hurt," exclaimed Marik, anxiously. "Castillon would not have gone without coming to see me, for it was he who picked me up when I fell, on the barricade."
"Our friends are probably in some hospital," suggested his wife, soothingly. "But please, do not alarm yourself so; you are still very weak, and strong excitement might be bad for you. We can only tell you that your father is unscathed, and the insurrection victorious."
"Victory rests with the people! It is well; and yet, what will it profit them?"
John Lebrenn and General Oliver now entered the sick-room. Madam Lebrenn rose and said to her husband, with all a mother's joy: "Our son has come entirely to himself, as the consequence of the long sleep which already reassured us. About half an hour after you left he awoke with his head perfectly clear. Our last anxieties may now be set aside; the convalescence begins well."
Lebrenn walked quickly over to the bed, looked at Marik a moment, and then embraced him tenderly, saying: "Here you are, out of danger, my dear son. Ah, what a weight was on my heart! The joy I feel consoles me for our deception—"
"My friend, I beg you—" interposed Madam Lebrenn. "The physician bade me shield our dear patient from all emotion."
"Perhaps it would, indeed, be better to leave Marik in ignorance of the result of our victory; but now it is impossible longer to hide from him the truth."