THIRTY-SECOND EVENING.
When I came to my senses I found myself in the same bed with Joseph, and it took me some time to recover full consciousness. When I did, I saw I was in Benoît's own room, that the bed was good, the sheets very white, and my arm bound up after a bleeding. The sun was shining through the yellow bed-curtains, and, except for a sense of weakness, I felt no ill. I turned to Joseph, who was a good deal cut about the head, but in no way to disfigure him, and who said, as he kissed me: "Well, my Tiennet, here we are, as in the old days, when we fought the boys of Verneuil on our way back from catechism, and were left lying together at the bottom of a ditch. You have protected me to your hurt, just as you did then, and I can never thank you as I ought; but you know, and I think you always knew, that my heart is not as churlish as my tongue."
"I have always known it," I replied, returning his kiss, "and if I have again protected you I am very glad of it. But you mustn't take too much for yourself. I had another motive—"
Here I stopped, fearing I might give way and let out Thérence's name; but just then a white hand drew back the curtain, and there I saw a vision of Thérence herself, leaning towards me, while Mariton went round between the bed and the wall to kiss and question her son.
Thérence bent over me, as I said; and I, quite overcome and thinking I was dreaming, tried to rise and thank her for her visit and assure her I was out of danger, when there! like a sick fool and blushing like a girl, I received from her lips the finest kiss that ever recalled the dead.
"What are you doing, Thérence?" I cried, grasping her hands, which I could almost have eaten up. "Do you want to make me crazy?"
"I want to thank you and love you all my life," she answered, "for you have kept your word to me; you have brought my father and my brother back to me safe and sound, and I know that all that you have done, all that has happened to you, is because you loved them and loved me. Therefore I am here to nurse you and not to leave you as long as you are ill."
"Ah, that's good, Thérence!" I said, sighing; "it is more than I deserve. Please God not to let me get well, for I don't know what would become of me afterwards."
"Afterwards?" said Père Bastien, coming into the room with Huriel and Brulette. "Come, daughter, what shall we do with him afterwards?"