Ralph looked at her in sore distress. He too felt as if his head were bursting and his brain running wild.
"Let us go," she continued; "but first see if you can find my feet; I lost them on the stones."
Ralph saw that her feet were wet and paralyzed by cold. He carried her in his arms to a house near by, where the kindly care of a hospitable woman restored her to consciousness. Meanwhile Ralph sent word to Monsieur Delmare that his wife was found; but the colonel had not returned home when the news arrived. He was continuing his search in a frenzy of anxiety and wrath. Ralph, being more perspicacious, had gone to Monsieur de Ramière's, but he had found Raymon, who had just gone to bed and who was very cool and ironical in his reception of him. Then he had thought of Noun and had followed the river in one direction, while his servant did the same in the other direction. Ophelia had speedily found her mistress's scent and had led Ralph to the place where he found her.
When Indiana was able to recall what had taken place during that wretched night, she tried in vain to remember the occurrences of her moments of delirium. She was unable therefore to explain to her cousin what thoughts had guided her action during the last hour; but he divined them and understood the state of her heart without questioning her. He simply took her hand and said to her in a gentle but grave tone:
"Cousin, I require one promise from you; it is the last proof of friendship which I shall ever ask at your hands."
"Tell me what it is," she replied; "to oblige you is the only pleasure that is left to me."
"Well then," rejoined Ralph, "swear to me that you will not resort to suicide without notifying me. I swear to you on my honor that I will not oppose your design in any way. I simply insist on being notified: as for life, I care about it as little as you do, and you know that I have often had the same idea."
"Why do you talk of suicide?" said Madame Delmare. "I have never intended to take my own life. I am afraid of God; if it weren't for that!——"
"Just now, Indiana, when I seized you in my arms, when this poor beast"—and he patted Ophelia—"caught your dress, you had forgotten God and the whole universe, poor Ralph with the rest."
A tear stood in Indiana's eye. She pressed Sir Ralph's hand.