Yes, he lived; and when the first moment of relief was over, Claire felt as if it might have been better had Nathalie not been there to call him back to dishonour. She did as she was told, but with no eagerness of love, feeling, indeed, as if all love for her brother had been killed in her heart. It was not so, for, thank God, love does not die so easily, but it gave her a fierce sense of satisfaction to believe it.
They did not tell Mme. de Beaudrillart that night how near he had been to death; though perhaps, poor woman, when she heard that monsieur le baron, in going to look at the river in its turbulence, had leaned upon a rotten rail, and had slipped into the stream, she guessed. Jacques went back at once that night, under pretence of its being unsafe for chance passers-by, and managed to break down and roughly mend again a piece of the railing. Old Antoine came by as he was at his work, and chuckled.
“So you are acting up to your name, Monsieur Charpentier, he, he, he! Strange that I should never have seen the hole as I passed, he, he, he!”
“Your eyes are not so good as they were, Antoine,” said the gardener, coolly.
“No, that’s true; and it’s natural the glass of good beer I got up there should have improved their sight. Well, I’m not a talker.”
“I’d keep to that if I were you,” said Jacques, whistling, “for we all know you’re a good deal besides. If you don’t see all you might, the saints know whether monsieur le baron has not looked at you with his eyes shut! There, that will do till the morning. Good-night, Antoine. You can tell your neighbours that monsieur le baron was leaning over to see if it was all right, when the rail gave way, and gave him a bad wetting. And when the next storm blows down a few branches up by the château you may have them for your store in the winter. I’ll see about it. Old fox!” he muttered, as he turned away. “But I think that will muzzle him. If all else could be as easily put right! Or if one only knew what Monsieur Léon did it for! But perhaps now he will take it quieter, whatever it was.”
Through the night Nathalie watched her husband, sore misery in her heart, and her young limbs aching. The latter part of it he slept well, and when he woke in the morning he was himself again—something more than himself, she thought, indeed, after he had called to her.
“Nathalie!”
“Dear.”
“Is it true? Did you save me?”