“How do you know me?” he inquired in French, regarding the prostrate man with a new interest.
The other sighed as he pressed his hand to his burning brow.
“Dieu!” he cried, “this awful heat will drive me mad.” Then, looking round with wolfish eyes, he asked: “What was I saying? Ah, yes, you—you don’t recognise me? I cannot hide my identity any longer. I’m dying. Does a beard make such a great alteration in a man’s countenance?”
“Recognise you! How should I?” asked Hugh, now thoroughly aroused from his lethargy.
“Then you don’t—remember—the Comte Chaulin-Servinière—at Spa?”
“Count Lucien!—Valérie’s cousin!” cried Hugh, in incredulous astonishment, as he suddenly recognised the man’s features. “Why—good God! yes. Only imagine, we have been comrades so long, yet I failed to recognise you. How came you to be sent to this infernal doom?”
“It was her doing.”
“Whose?”
“Valérie’s.”
He ground his teeth viciously, and his bright eyes flashed as he uttered her name.