“Will he live?” asked Madame in English. “God knows,” added she with trembling accents, “that I have no other wish within my heart but to hear you say 'Yes.'”
“Of course, Madame,” returned the other with meaning, “I do not pay you so ill a compliment as to suppose you to wish him dead, because he inconveniences you by his presence here; but I cannot say 'Yes' or 'No,' He is terribly hurt. The spine is injured; and there are ribs broken which I cannot even look to now. But it is here”—he pointed to the forehead—“where the worst danger lies: unhappily, the mischief has been done when he was—in the worst possible state to bear such a blow in such a place.”
“Does he know, doctor”——
“He knows nothing, Madame; perhaps he may never know. You must not speak so much, however; or, if so, pray use your native tongue. It is better, if consciousness does return, that the brain should be kept quite quiet. I think you had better retire to your room, Madame, and leave myself and Rachel to manage.”
“Yes, yes, we can do very well, lady,” assented old Rachel. “This is not a place for such as Madame, is it, sir? If we could only get Mistress Forest, now; she is first-rate at nursing; she nursed me for three whole nights last winter, when I was most uncommon had with the shivers, caught a-coming from Dalwynch in the spring-cart—and the cover on it, when it don't rain, is worse than nothing, for there's such a draught drives right through it”——
“Yes, yes,” interrupted the doctor impatiently; “you are quite right, Rachel. We'll send for Mistress Forest the first thing in the morning: she can easily be spared from the Abbey, now my Lady's away.”
“Ah, the more's the pity!” returned old Rachel. “And this looks almost like a judgment, don't it, sir, that this poor man, who was so rude to my dear mistress—or wanted to be, as I have heard—should have been carried in under her own roof here, feet foremost”——
“Be silent, woman!” broke in Madame de Castellan with severity. “We have nothing to do with Lady Lisgard's affairs here. This house is my house for the present; this wounded man is my guest.”
“Speak French, speak French, Madame,” exclaimed the doctor imploringly. “Did you not hear me say so before? You had much better return to bed.”
“No, no,” returned Madame, in her native tongue; “I cannot do it. I will be prudent, I will be careful for the future; but I cannot leave him, until, at all events, Mary Forest comes. O send her—send her, and let this woman go, whose presence is intolerable to me.”