If I had been twenty years older, I might have succeeded in carrying out my intention. But, with the young, sleep is a paramount necessity, and nature insists on obedience to its merciful law. I remember feeling drowsy; starting up from the bed, and walking about my room, to keep myself awake; then lying down again from sheer fatigue; and after that—total oblivion! When I woke, and looked at my watch, I found that I had been fast asleep for no less than six hours!
Bewildered and ashamed of myself—afraid to think of what might have happened in that long interval—I hurried to Mr. Keller's room, and softly knocked at the door.
A woman's voice answered me, "Come in!"
I paused with my hand on the door—the voice was familiar to me. I had a moment's doubt whether I was mad or dreaming. The voice softly repeated, "Come in!" I entered the room.
There she was, seated at the bedside, smiling quietly and lifting her finger to her lips! As certainly as I saw the familiar objects in the room, and the prostrate figure on the bed, I saw—Madame Fontaine!
"Speak low," she said. "He sleeps very lightly; he must not be disturbed."
I approached the bed and looked at him. There was a faint tinge of color in his face; there was moisture on his forehead; his hands lay as still on the counterpane, in the blessed repose that possessed him, as the hands of a sleeping child. I looked round at Madame Fontaine.
She smiled again; my utter bewilderment seemed to amuse her. "He is left entirely to me, David," she said, looking tenderly at her patient. "Go downstairs and see Mr. Engelman. There must be no talking here."
She lightly wiped the perspiration from his forehead; lightly laid her fingers on his pulse—then reclined in the easy chair, with her eyes fixed in silent interest on the sleeping man. She was the very ideal of the nurse with fine feelings and tender hands, contemplated by Doctor Dormann when I had last seen him. Any stranger looking into the room at that moment would have said, "What a charming picture! What a devoted wife!"