At night, as he was returning from one of those solitary walks in which he was accustomed to exhale his sadness, and also to gather fresh resolution for the struggle he had undertaken with destiny, and was slowly mounting the long, dark, dilapidated staircase that led up to that fifth floor on which he resided, he stumbled over some obstacle, and, on looking closer, found it was the body of a woman lying outstretched upon the stairs. It was the Countess. In spite of solicitations and her own promise, she had gone out; but her strength had failed her. She had fallen, and now lay insensible.
Our young Doctor, braving all malicious interpretations, carried her to his own room, which was the nearest place of refuge, and there, by the aid of some cordials he administered, restored her to her senses. She opened her eyes, looked around her, and understanding in whose room she was, she said, with a scrutinising air, "You are miserably lodged here." It was the only observation his amiable patient made, and she repeated it several times—"You must be miserably off." Even when she had returned to her own room, and he had left her for the night, she still said nothing but—"You are miserably lodged!"
The next morning, when the Doctor visited his patient—and you may be sure his visit was an early one—to his surprise, she was on foot, with sleeves tucked up, sweeping, dusting, and putting to rights her little abode. He was astonished. The shock which she had received the day before, instead of injuring her, had apparently aided in her restoration. She was quite gay.
"You are resolved to kill yourself, then?" said the Doctor.
"I was never better in my life," she answered.
"Do not be too confident," was his reply. "You must keep your room two or three days; and this time," he added, with a smile, "I shall keep guard over you myself."
The Countess consented with a most childlike docility. She would do what he pleased; only yesterday she was obliged to go out—it was absolutely necessary. There was so much gentleness in her altered manner, that the Doctor was disposed to regard this as an alarming symptom in her case.
However, it, was not so. Her health, day by day, improved, and the relation between the patient and her medical attendant became more amicable. She proposed, by way of some return, to assist him in his bachelor housekeeping. It would give her no trouble. An hour in the morning, when he was at his lectures, some of which he still followed; and then she could cook, and she could mend. These offers the young Doctor declined with a sort of alarm. Who but himself could readjust those habiliments, whose strong and whose weak points he so very well knew? What needle could, on this ground, be half so skilful as his own? And cooking! Cooking with him! Cook what? On what? In what? It was in vain that the Countess insisted; he would hear of no such thing. He kept his poverty veiled—it was his sacred territory.
Some few days after the Countess's health might be said to be quite re-established, our young Doctor, on entering his room, was surprised to see a letter lying on his table. Correspondence, for the mere sake of letter-writing, he had quite foregone as a pure waste of time; and he had no relatives who interested themselves in his fate, or who could have any thing to communicate. Nevertheless, there the letter was, addressed duly to himself. He looked at it with an uncomfortable foreboding, assured that it must bring him some new care, or report some strange disaster.
He sat down, and tore open the envelope. He bounded from his seat again with surprise—the letter enclosed fifteen notes of the Bank of France! It is no fairy tale, but simple history; fifteen good notes of one thousand francs each.