"At all events," she replied, after a pause of some moments, "it is grateful to know that there is some one who shares our anxieties and has the desire really at heart to mitigate them."
"You speak truly, mademoiselle," I returned. "I desire nothing so much as to see peace and contentment restored to this house, and I only wish that I possessed a thousandfold more power to accomplish it than I do. But whatever my skill is, it shall be devoted to this one end; and I shall not despair of success until all my efforts have proved unavailing."
I was surprised at my own warmth a moment after; but Odile's glance satisfied me that I had not transgressed the limits of that reserve with which she surrounded herself.
"And furthermore," I continued, encouraged by this fact to speak what I had for some time meditated, "if I might add the advice of a friend to that of the doctor, I should beg of you to spare yourself as much as possible in the matter of night watches and too unremitting a care of the Count, for a true woman's strength is exhausted long before her will, and you owe it to your friends as well as to yourself to preserve the life which God has entrusted to you."
Odile lowered her eyes, then raised them; and as I approached and lifted to my lips the hand which she gave me, I surprised there a look which opened up to me a world of speculation.
I returned to my chamber, where I found an hour none too long to calm in a measure the exuberance of feeling to which my moments with Odile invariably gave rise.
Inclination made me quite as much concerned to spare Odile the suffering which her father's revolting harshness in his moments of delirium caused her, as to restore the Count to health, for after the morning's experience I felt that my pity for the sick man had, in spite of myself, largely given place to loathing; and I felt too, with Sperver, that I could throttle him as he continued to heap injuries upon his daughter's defenceless head.
However, there was but one way to alter the present condition of things and to establish a better one; namely, to effect the Count's cure, and I resolved that the best effort of my life should be expended here. Meanwhile I knew not where to begin. Medicines used otherwise than as opiates seemed lacking in the smallest efficacy. I saw nothing for it but to await developments.
To remonstrate with Odile in the matter of the vow which she had taken was clearly out of the question, though I was curious to see if any yielding on her part would effect the change in her father's condition which he averred it would.
And the reason of her absolute refusal to entertain even the thought of marriage? What could it be? She was not without feeling, a fact sufficiently demonstrated by her unswerving devotion to the Count. Nor did it seem to me that she could regard with disdain the fulfilment of that position which is the noblest aim and achievement of womankind, and which she was so eminently fitted by every circumstance of fortune to occupy and adorn. It could not be that there was any lack of understanding; for at times, when I surprised her glance resting upon me, I read in it a depth of sensibility that seemed almost unfathomable; and that its possessor was all kindness, in the strongest and best sense of the term, I was convinced. Of the answer to this riddle, it seemed then, I must forever remain in ignorance; but while any chance remained to solve it, I was determined to do so at all costs.