This was said in a voice soft and sweet as a child's, and I concluded the speaker was a doctor. Raoul made some reply, but I could not understand his words, and gradually my sense of hearing failed altogether. For weeks I lay hovering between life and death, and when at length I was able to look about me and realise something of what went on, I was painfully weak and helpless.
Thrice every day there came into my room a tall, grave, white-bearded man, who sometimes smiled kindly, but more often shook his head in a sorrowful manner. And always, throughout the day and night, there sat by my bedside a grief-stricken youth who tended me with the utmost care. This youth, so sad and melancholy, was Raoul, but Raoul so altered as to be scarcely recognisable. For hours he would sit motionless as a statue, then, rising gently, he would give me the medicine according to the doctor's orders, or smooth the tumbled pillow which I was helpless to re-arrange for myself.
One morning, waking after a long sleep, I felt considerably better. My comrade sat as usual beside the bed, but, wearied by the night watch, his head had sunk on his breast, and he had fallen asleep. I half turned to look at him more closely, but at the first movement he started up wide awake.
"Raoul!" I whispered.
"Albert!"
"It is all right, old friend; I shall get on now."
Grasping my hand, which lay outside the coverlet, he pressed it gently, and, kneeling down, gave thanks to God for this first step in my recovery.
"Amen to that," said I. "And now, my dear Raoul, tell me the news. Remember that I am ignorant of everything."
"First let me hear you say that you forgive me."
"Forgive you, old comrade? Peste! there is nothing to forgive. Is it your fault that I am the less skilful hand with the sword?"