The tones awakened the little Louis. He opened his eyes and looked around. Yes, it had really all been only a dream—he had heard neither his mother nor Simon's wife, and yet it had been as natural as if it had all really transpired. He had felt arms tenderly embracing him and tears hot upon his forehead.
Entirely unconscious he raised his hand to his brow and drew it back affrighted, for his hair and his temples were wet, as if the tears of which he dreamed had really fallen there.
"What does this mean, Jeanne Marie?" asked Simon, angrily, "Why have you got out of bed while I was away, and what have you had to do in the room of the little viper?"
"If you leave me alone with him I have to watch him, sick as I am," moaned she. "I had to see whether he was still there, whether he had not run away, and gone to report to the Convention that we have left him alone and have no care for him."
"Oh, bah! he will not complain of us," laughed Simon; "but keep quiet, Jeanne Marie, I promise you that I will not leave you alone again with the wolf's cub. Besides, here is the medicine that the doctor has sent, and to-morrow he will come himself again to see how you get on. So keep up a good heart, Jeanne Marie, and all will come right again."
The next morning, Dr. Naudin came again to look after the sick woman. Simon had just gone up-stairs to announce something to the two princesses in the name of the Convention, and had ordered the little Capet to remain in the anteroom, and, if the doctor should come, to open the door to him.
Nobody else was in the anteroom when Dr. Naudin entered, and the door leading into the next room was closed, so that the sick person who was there could see and hear nothing of what took place.
"Sir," whispered the boy, softly and quickly, "you were yesterday so good to me, you protected me from blows, and I should like to thank you for it."
The doctor made no reply, but he looked at the boy with such an expression of sympathy that he felt emboldened to go on.
"My dear sir," continued the child, softly, and with a blush, "I have nothing with which to show my gratitude to you but these two pears that were given me for my supper last night. And just because I am so poor, you would do me a great pleasure if you would accept my two pears." [Footnote: The boy's own words.—See Beauchesne, vol. ii., p. 180.]