For an hour he remained in a swoon, broken only by incoherent cries, that at rare intervals fashioned themselves into language. Then it was always “Cécile!”
I had a flask of brandy in my pocket. I got water from a little mountain spring close by. I bathed my poor comrade’s temples, and gave him a reviving draught of the spirit and water. I rubbed his cold hands, and beat them, to restore him to consciousness.
At last he came to. How can I describe my joy when I found that he was, to all appearance, sane. For the attempt to shoot the unfortunate woman was the act of a madman. That attempt had happily been frustrated. What was now to be done? You will see, from my coolness and presence of mind in this danger, that I am able to act in an emergency. While Marc lay swooning on the grass by my side, I had had time to think. My course, my duty, were alike clear to me. I had been innocently—though I can never forgive myself—the cause of Cécile’s second marriage. I must not conceal this from Marc. My shoulders are broad. The truth must be told. I must tell it.
“Just now, Marc,” I said, shaking him gently by the hand, “you were not Marc Debois. You were a madman intent on murder—the murder of her whom he loved best in the world!”
“Name her not!” he burst out, throwing up his head and pressing his hands to his eyes; “faithless—false wretch!”
“Through me.”
“Through you?”
“Listen. A fortnight ago I was put ashore at Bénévent, after three years’ existence, for I will not call it life, in that island, on whose shores I thought I saw you swallowed up by the sharks. Cécile—”
He started back a few paces from me at the mention of her name.
I continued, however.