"It was the 6th of May."
"But you don't know whether it was in the morning or the evening?"
"Pardon me! I was with his mother when he was born. It was just on the stroke of half after six in the morning."
Nostradamus made a note of these facts.
"I will see what was the condition of the heavens on that day at that hour," said he. "But if Vicomte d'Exmès were twenty years older, I would swear that I had already held his hand in mine; but that's of little consequence, after all. It is not the sorcerer, as the people sometimes call me, but the physician, who has work to do here; and I tell you again, Dame Aloyse, the physician will answer now for the invalid's welfare."
"Pardon, Master!" said Aloyse, sadly; "you say that you will answer for the disease, but that you will not answer for the passion."
"The passion! Oh! But," Nostradamus replied, smiling significantly, "I should say that the attendance of the little maid twice a day tends to show that the passion is not altogether a hopeless one."
"Quite the contrary, Master,—quite the contrary!" cried Aloyse, in an accent of horror.
"Come, come, Dame Aloyse! wealthy, gallant, young, and handsome as Vicomte d'Exmès is, a man is in no danger of being held off for long by the ladies in a time like ours. A brief postponement is the utmost he has to fear."
"But suppose that this is not the case, Master. Suppose that when Monseigneur is restored to life and reason, the first and only thought which his restored reason will entertain should be this: 'The woman whom I love is irrevocably lost to me,' then what will happen to him?"