It was freezing hard outside, and as soon as he recovered breathing power, I led my husband to the drawing-room sofa, which I wheeled in front of the chimney, and the wood being piled up ready for a fire, I made a great blaze, and opened the windows wide at the same time. Once stretched on the couch and wrapped up in blankets, facing the leaping flames, he soon regained vital warmth, and his breathing became more regular.
Altogether the crisis had lasted five hours, during which I had remained alone with him without even calling a maid, for fear of making him worse through annoyance. I affected entire freedom from anxiety as to the end, merely expressing sympathy with his momentary sufferings, and I was thankful to succeed in deceiving him.
As soon as he felt well enough to be left for a short time, I hastened to the doctor's, but went first to tell Mary and her husband of the sad occurrence, that they might go to their father while I should be away.
The doctor attributed the attack entirely to the effect of the smoke, and said it had nothing to do with my husband's malady—"he had been asphyxiated;" it would have no lasting effects, except as to retarding the cure; the ground gained since the beginning of the regimen had been lost, and it was all to begin over again.
I did not attempt to disguise from him my anxious fears nor my feelings when I had witnessed my husband's tortures without any means or hopes of alleviating them; "for," I added, "I have been told there is no help in cases of acute asthma." "There was not," he answered, "till a quite recent discovery; but now immediate relief may be given by injections of serum."
Though he assured me that there would be no other attack of the same kind if we took care to have only wood fires and no smoke, I insisted upon being recommended to a reliable doctor, not far from our house, who would promise to come at any time of night if we needed him, and who would always have serum in his possession—the great specialist being himself at too great a distance from us to be fetched in an emergency. The very doctor I wanted happened to be this very day sharing, as he often did, the labors and studies of the specialist. He was called in, and, after listening to an explanation, gave me the promise I desired, and said he would follow me immediately to Clématis to see the patient; and if he should see the necessity for it, would ask his friend to join him at our house for a consultation.
As he noticed the distress under which I was laboring, the physician kindly said before I left him: "I repeat, that I do not apprehend a recurrence of what happened last night—but, si par impossible une autre crise semblable survenait, rappelez-vous bien que, même suivie de syncope, elle ne serait jamais mortelle."
I believed him, though my heart was still heavy at the thoughts of the sufferings that the future might bring to my husband. I felt greatly relieved in being able to give him the doctor's assurance that there was no danger for his life.
I was happy on entering the drawing-room to see him quietly talking with Mary and Raoul, and eating grapes. He said that, with the exception of fatigue, he felt very well indeed. He had taken some broth, and partook of a light dinner with pleasure.
The doctor delegated by the physician, after an examination, merely confirmed what had been said to me, and saw no necessity for a consultation with his friend.