"Not here? What! Not here?" I cried again. "But she must be here.
Didn't I bring her here last night?"
"Certainly, monsieur; but she's gone home."
At this, there burst from the doctor a peal of laughter—so loud, so long, so savage, and so brutal, that I forgot in a moment all that he had been doing for my sake, and felt an almost irresistible inclination to punch his head. Only I didn't; and, perhaps, it was just as well. The sudden inclination passed, and there remained nothing but an overwhelming sense of disappointment, by which I was crushed for a few minutes, while still the doctor's mocking laughter sounded in my ears.
"How was it?" I asked, at length—"how did she get off? When I left, she was in a fever, and wanted a doctor."
"After you left, monsieur, she slept, and awoke, toward morning, very much better. She dressed, and then wanted us to get a conveyance to take her to Quebec. We told her that you had gone for a doctor, and that she had better wait. But this, she said, was impossible. She would not think of it. She had to go to Quebec as soon as possible, and entreated us to find some conveyance. So we found a wagon at a neighbor's, threw some straw in it and some skins over it, and she went away."
"She went!" I repeated, in an imbecile way.
"Oui, monsieur."
"And didn't she leave any word?"
"Monsieur?"
"Didn't she leave any message for—for me?"