“Oh! I beg your pardon. Well, she will certainly faint away when she sees the poor man, and while she is unconscious she can be taken home in a carriage.
“That is what I thought,” replied the Count. “Pray send one of your men to tell my servants in the Cour de Harlay to come round to the gate. Mine is the only carriage there.”
“We can save him yet,” said the Countess, walking on with a degree of strength and spirit that surprised her friends. “There are ways of restoring life——”
And she dragged the gentlemen along, crying to the warder:
“Come on, come faster—one second may cost three lives!”
When the cell door was opened, and the Countess saw Lucien hanging as though his clothes had been hung on a peg, she made a spring towards him as if to embrace him and cling to him; but she fell on her face on the floor with smothered shrieks and a sort of rattle in her throat.
Five minutes later she was being taken home stretched on the seat in the Count’s carriage, her husband kneeling by her side. Monsieur de Bauvan went off to fetch a doctor to give her the care she needed.
The Governor of the Conciergerie meanwhile was examining the outer gate, and saying to his clerk:
“No expense was spared; the bars are of wrought iron, they were properly tested, and cost a large sum; and yet there was a flaw in that bar.”
Monsieur de Granville on returning to his room had other instructions to give to his private secretary. Massol, happily had not yet arrived.