"Well?" said she.
Gabriel struggled manfully to overcome a feeling of faintness which dimmed his sight anew. He would have liked well to weep, but he could not. He replied in a faltering voice,—
"I know nothing, Aloyse! Everything has been dumb and speechless,—these women and my heart as well. I know nothing except that my brow is as cold as ice, and yet I am burning up. Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!"
"Courage, Monseigneur!" said Aloyse.
"I have had courage," said Gabriel; "but God be merciful to me, I am dying!"
And once more he fell backward on the floor, but this time he did not come to himself again.
CHAPTER XVII
THE HOROSCOPE
"The sick man will live, Dame Aloyse! The danger has been very great, and his convalescence will be very slow. All this blood-letting has weakened the poor fellow terribly; but he will live, never fear! And thank God that the extreme debilitation of the body has lessened the blow that his mind has received, for we cannot cure those wounds; and this one of his might have been fatal,—indeed, it may yet be!"
The physician who spoke thus was a man of great height, with a great bulging forehead and deep-set and piercing eyes. The common people called him Master Nostredame; but he signed his own name Nostradamus. He seemed to be not more than fifty years old.