“Thank God for that!” cried Dorothy, bursting into tears for the first time.
Saunderson looked at her with a grim smile on his homely features.
“Women sometimes thank God for unco´ little. But he´ll do for the now, and I´ll be back in an hour. Come, Mr. Orme, you´ll see me to the door, for I have some directions to give you and my time is precious.”
Gervase went out with him to the door and they stood on the great stone steps together. Then the surgeon laid his two broad hands on Gervase´s shoulders and looked at him steadily. “Look ye here,” he said, “I learnt the practice of medicine in the University of Glasgow, but there´s ane thing I learnt since. I´m no sure I´ve got to the bottom of this devildum, but I´m sure o´ this, that if yon chiel dies, the lassie will even break her bonnie heart and the same small sword will have killed them both. Swartz says the deed was yours, but he´s a fause loon to look at, and I ken now it´s a lee. I ken you love her too well--I´ve learnt that too--to do her scaith, and I leave him in your hands till the morning. When a woman´s in love she´s no´ to be trusted. I´ll send you a draught and ye´ll see to it that he gets it.”
He left Gervase hardly understanding the speech he had heard. Then its full meaning dawned on him. Till now it had not occurred to him that Dorothy had cared for De Laprade, but the mere suggestion awoke a thousand trivial recollections that lent colour to the thought. He had believed that her great distress was only due to the fact that her guest and kinsman had fallen by her brother´s hand. But if it was otherwise--if she loved De Laprade and looked on himself only as a friend--it took the strength out of his heart to think of it. This great passion, the first that he had known, had transformed his life and inspired him in the midst of all the dangers and privations he was passing through. And now it seemed to him that his hopes had fallen like a house of cards. He was a fool to think that she should care for him--and yet who could tell? So with hope that was not altogether dead, and doubt, and a touch of jealousy, as has been since love came first into the world, he went back to help his stricken rival.
CHAPTER XV.
OF HOW THE VICOMTE WAS BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE.
For several days De Laprade hovered between life and death, apparently conscious and that was all. Dorothy hardly left his bedside night or day, attending upon him with sedulous care and devotion. Seeing that she was about to give way under the strain, Saunderson took affairs into his own hands and forbade her the room altogether. While she had been in the sick chamber De Laprade had used to follow her with his eyes--eyes in which there was little sign of intelligence--but now that she came no more, he sank into a deep and deathlike lethargy from which he seldom awakened. Whether for Dorothy´s sake or from the nature of the case, Saunderson gave up much of his time to the wounded Viscount, and invariably reported his patient´s progress to the anxious girl who was awaiting his departure from the sick chamber. So far from adopting the physician´s usual diplomacy, he had endeavoured to keep up her spirits from the beginning, assuring her that with skill and care, ill as he seemed, he would yet dance at her wedding.
“You will see,” he had said, with rough kindliness “there are twa bodies tha´ll no die lichtly--he that´s gain to be married and he that´s gain to be hangit; and when this braw callant hath had both prospects before him he´ll no leave us this gait. He should have been a corp three days syne by every rule of the faculty, but yon bit thing never touched his vitals after all. You´ll no greet your bonnie een out, Miss Carew, but just tak your rest and leave him to Providence and me.”
For Saunderson had come to the conclusion that the Vicomte was Dorothy´s lover, and that in some way or other, that was the cause of the quarrel in which he had been wounded. He had at first believed that Gervase had been the assailant, but Dorothy had undeceived him on that head; but on the other she had remained entirely silent and made no effort to remove his misunderstanding. She had, however, seen, or thought she had seen, through the friendly deception of the surgeon, and when she had been closed out of the sick room she had believed the end was approaching. She had not understood, though she had guessed, the nature of the tragedy that had been enacted between her brother and her cousin; and though she was not aware of all the circumstances she had come to think she owed the Vicomte a great debt. She had remembered every word of their brief conversation an hour or two before the brawl, and knowing his high sense of honour, she had laid the blame entirely on her brother. All that was passing without seemed like a dream now--only the death chamber was real to her and this tragedy with its deep and indelible stain of guilt. She had felt that she was grieved for the wretches who had been driven to starve under the walls, and she felt rejoiced when she heard that De Rosen had relented, but she felt also that she had not realized the news. It seemed wholly remote. This domestic tragedy, so near and so terrible, entirely filled her mind with its abiding horror. She felt there was no sacrifice she would not willingly make to avert this calamity, and each day she waited with a suspense that was intolerable for the coming of the surgeon from the sick room. Even Jasper´s treachery had passed into the background in the presence of this new and more appalling crime. Gervase Orme had called every day but she had refused to see him, for though she yearned for sympathy in her distress her pride compelled her to nurse her sorrow in secret. Jasper came and went with perfect sang froid; he seemed to be the only person in the household to whom the wounded man´s condition was a matter of indifference.
So the days went past and there seemed to be little or no change in the Vicomte´s condition. But at length he recovered perfect consciousness and asked eagerly for Dorothy. It was indeed his first question after he recovered speech. Saunderson was in the room and seated by his patient´s side feeling his thin and languid pulse, when De Laprade suddenly looked at him with an eager and questioning gaze. The change was so sudden that the surgeon was startled. “I saw Dorothy--Miss Carew--but now,” said the Vicomte. “Where is she?”