"No, I will go and have him called."
"Ah! do not leave me."
"Well, then, I will not; but to aid you—"
"Nothing, nothing! I know what it is; it is nothing. Do not be alarmed; you see I am quiet. And—you are here!—and you knew nothing?"
"Nothing in the world. For some days I have found you changed—I thought, indeed, that you were ill, but I dared not be anxious—"
"And now at this moment—did I call you?—What—what did I say?"
"Nothing. You broke this window-pane in falling perhaps. Has it not wounded you?"
And Caroline, approaching the light, took up and examined the hands of the Marquis. The right one was quite badly cut: she washed away the blood, adroitly removed the particles of glass, and dressed the wound. Urbain submitted, regarding her with the mingled astonishment and tenderness of a man who, picked up on the battle-field, discovers himself in friendly hands. He repeated feebly, "My brother, then, has told you nothing,—is it true?"
She did not at all understand this question, which seemed to have gained the fixedness of a diseased fancy, and to banish it she recounted to him, while binding up his hand, that she had believed him in the hands of assassins. "It was absurd, to be sure," she said, forcing herself to be cheerful; "but how could I help it? That fear took possession of me, and I ran hither, as to a fire, without informing any one."
"And if that had been really the case, you were coming here to expose yourself to danger?"