Bourbonais glanced quickly at the clock, and exclaimed in a tone of surprise: “Already half-past twelve! I did not think it was so late. Thou wilt show him up at once, my child, and then leave us alone for a little.”
No further explanation was necessary. Franceline kissed him in silence, placed a chair close by his pillow, and then, in a happy flutter, went down to meet Father Henwick.
Two days after this there was great joy at The Lilies. The little cottage was decked out as for a bridal. Franceline had stayed up late to have it all finished for the early morning; she would do everything with her own hands. The stairs were wreathed with garlands of green leaves and ferns; every vase and cup she could find was filled with the sweet spring flowers—cowslips, primroses, anemones, and wild violets—and placed in the tiny entrance and on the landing opposite Raymond’s room. The room itself was transformed into a chapel. At the foot of the bed stood a small table covered with Franceline’s snowiest muslin, joyously sacrificed for the occasion. Lights were burning on either side of a large crucifix; there were lights and flowers on the mantelpiece, where she had placed her statue of the Madonna and other precious ornaments; the thin curtains were drawn and filled the little room with a soft golden twilight. Franceline was kneeling beside the bed, reciting some litany aloud, which Raymond answered from a book in timid, reverential under-tones.
But now a sudden hush falls upon the faintly-broken silence. There is a sound of footsteps without; a dear and awful Presence is
approaching. No need to ring; the door stands open to its widest, and Angélique, kneeling on the threshold, adores and welcomes the divine Guest; a little bell goes tinkling up amidst the flowers, and ceases as it enters the illuminated room.…
* * * * *
The sudden improvement in Raymond’s state was not followed by a proportionately rapid progress. He still continued extremely weak, and was not able to come down-stairs until several days later. Dr. Blink was puzzled; he had been very sanguine when the rally took place, and now he hardly knew what to think. He was convinced from the first that the attack had been in a great measure caused by some mental shock; but that seemed at one moment to have righted itself, and he thought his patient was safe. This was apparently a mistake. The pressure may have been unexpectedly lightened, but it was clearly not removed; and until this was done medicine could do very little.
“There is something on his mind,” said the doctor to Mr. Langrove one morning, on coming out from his daily visit; “there is some trouble weighing on him, and he will not recover until something is done toward removing it.”
The vicar understood perfectly the drift of this remark. It was an appeal from the medical man to the friend of the patient for help or light. Mr. Langrove could give neither. He observed that the count had been seriously anxious about Franceline’s health; but Dr. Blink shook his head. He knew how to discriminate between the effect of heartache and a pressure on the mind. In this case the mind was oppressed by some secret burden, or he was very much mistaken;
it might be some painful apprehension in the future, or something distressing in the past; but whatever the cause was, past or future, the present effect was unmistakable, and, unless some friend who had the full confidence of the patient could afford some relief, the worst might still be apprehended. Mr. Langrove answered by some irrelevant expression of sympathy and regret, but volunteered no opinion of his own. He went home and sat down and wrote to Sir Simon Harness. This was all he could think of. If Sir Simon could not help, he believed no one else could.