"I don't believe the tale for a moment," said Riche with a smile of contempt for such an ignorant superstition.
"Well look at the two side by side as I have done, and you will change your opinion. They are as different as day from night. Renée's hair has a brownish colour, whereas her mother's is of a light golden colour." He showed them both side by side to Riche but he merely shrugged his shoulders. He had seen so many wonderful things lately that he had ceased to scoff, but felt it prudent to keep silent.
At the end of the week Delapine's temperature had risen to normal (98.4° F.) and he had so far recovered that he was able to walk downstairs and sit in the study.
Renée was in constant attendance. No hospital nurse could have looked after him better, and certainly no one in the world could have replaced her in Delapine's eyes.
"Oh! Villebois, mon ami," he would say as he lay on the sofa a few days later, "I have had a most marvellous sleep, and a wonderful recovery, but you cannot imagine in your wildest dreams what wonderful adventures and experiences I have had."
"Adventures!" they all exclaimed, "What adventures? Why, you have been lying down in your bed upstairs for months past watched by us in turn day and night without a moment's cessation, and now you talk of adventures. It's we who have had the adventures, not you. Strange things have happened since that memorable evening when you went off in the trance-sleep. Are you aware, professor, that Pierre attempted to murder you by injecting a subtle poison into your arm?"
"Enough of that," said Delapine, "I know it all. Didn't you get my letter, Renée, in which I pointed it all out to you, and entreated you not to allow me to be touched or buried?"
"Rather! Why, Henri, Dr. Riche brought it to me, and it was that letter which saved your life by convincing Riche and Villebois that you were not dead, and so preventing the autopsy. Oh! how thankful I was when I read it. It gave me new life—in fact I am sure if I had not received some such encouragement I should have died of grief."
"Thank God that you saw the letter in time," replied Delapine, "I had a strange premonition that all this was going to happen, and so I prepared for it by giving you the sealed envelope."
"Let us not talk about it now, Henri, you are under my orders and I cannot allow my patient to get excited."