She was answered in a voice she had never heard before,—Laure's, but hoarse and shaken. Laure had fallen upon her knees, and grasped the bedclothes, hiding her face in the folds.
"I am ill," she answered in this strange, changed tone. "I am—I am cold and burning—I am—dying."
In an instant Mère Giraud stood upon the floor holding her already insensible form in her arm'. She was obliged to lay her upon the floor while she rang the bell to alarm the servants. She sent for Valentin and a doctor. The doctor, arriving, regarded the beautiful face with manifest surprise and alarm. It was no longer pale, but darkly flushed, and the stamp of terrible pain was upon it.
"She has been exposed to infection," he said. "This is surely the case. It is a malignant fever."
Then Mère Giraud thought of the poor mother and child.
"O my God!" she prayed, "do not let her die a martyr."
But the next day there was not a servant left in the house; but Valentin was there, and there had come a Sister of Mercy. When she came, Valentin met her, and led her into the salon. They remained together for half an hour, and then came out and went to the sick-room, and there were traces of tears upon the Sister's face. She was a patient, tender creature, who did her work well, and she listened with untiring gentleness to Mère Giraud's passionate plaints.
"So beautiful, so young, so beloved," cried the poor mother; "and Monsieur absent in Normandy, though it is impossible to say where! And if death should come before his return, who could confront him with the truth? So beautiful, so happy, so adored!"
And Laure lay upon the bed, sometimes wildly delirious, sometimes a dreadful statue of stone,—unhearing, unseeing, unmoving,—death without death's rest,—life in death's bonds of iron.
But while Mère Giraud wept, Valentin had no tears. He was faithful, untiring, but silent even at the worst.