None of these symptoms seemed to belong to the malady that ravaged the lazaretto; and the Surgeon, disconcerted, let Mathieu divine his inability to make it out. Accustomed to the coarse medicines required by the robust patients of our ships, he was perforce a stranger, as are all like him, to the ailments of more delicate natures. Thus did he stand baffled before this woman, dying of a disorder such as he vainly sought to trace in his experiences. He could not conceal his doubts, and his need of more enlightened advice. Science, to which these mysterious and redoubtable symptoms were familiarized, might find there an index, where he perceived only confusion, and point out a remedy, which he dared but essay at hap-hazard.
This avowal, wrung from his loyal truth, was for Mathieu a new source of torture. Shut up within prescribed limits which forbid strangers to approach Trébéron, he could not invoke that experience to which Geneviève might perchance owe her safety. In vain did he see, at his feet, boats for transporting him across the sea, and on the horizon a town whence aid might be brought to him; an obstacle invincible and insurmountable linked him to his source of trouble.
Two whole days passed away for him, as one long agony, in alternations of mute dejection and of furious despair. After sitting for several hours at the bedside of the dying woman, when he saw the fever that had been lulled for an instant now returning with increased force, he ran down to the edge of the reefs, gazed upon the waters in the midst of which he found himself imprisoned, upon the armed vessel that guarded the passage, upon the ravines of the island dotted with graves recently dug, and pressing his closed fists against his forehead he cursed the day on which he had accepted this voluntary imprisonment. Angrily did he call God to account for the blows with which he was stricken; then, restored to his religious faith, he joined his hands, and with tears besought the Almighty to spare Geneviève.
Towards the morning of the third day, he had cause for believing that his prayers had been heard. The fever abated, and the patient recovered all her clearness of mind. But this change did not induce her to share the delight or the hopes of Mathieu.
—"Never believe that this is a cure, dear soul," said she in tones scarcely audible, and alternating every phrase with periods of silence; "the disease is going ... but it carries all with it.... That evening, when you went across the channel ... when I heard the child's cry from out of the sea itself ... I thought it was all over with you both ... and then ... I can't say what took place ... but it seemed to me ... that within me ... the main string of life was snapped.... So I feel now, that it's all over."
Ropars combatted these fears, repeating that the Surgeon was encouraged, and that all would go well. Geneviève, whose eyes were closed, raised the lids with difficulty and threw a glance upon him that was full of melancholy sweetness.
—"God is the master, Mathieu," said she; "he knows whether I am happy in living with you.... Only, ... believe me, poor husband, and don't rejoice too much ... it were wiser to expect the worst."
—"It were wiser," interrupted the quarter-master, "to take rest, and have confidence. I, too, trust in what I feel. This very night, I had a weight of lead upon my heart; it is light now; I can breathe in one single breath. In God's name, let your health be restored to you, and be anxious for a continuance of life, if it were but for my sake."
Geneviève made an effort to lay her cold and moistened hand upon that of Ropars.
—"You are good, Mathieu," said she, letting fall two little tears, the last that emotion could drain from eyes already exhausted with weeping. "Ah me! my chief regret now is at not having always thought of this ... at not having shown myself sufficiently grateful.... Heavens! how much worthier we should be of those we love, if we did but remember that some day we must leave them.... Since my mind has returned, this idea has haunted me; I now perceive all my faults; ... I feel remorse for them.... Oh! tell me in mercy, Mathieu, do you forgive me now ... for never having been what I ought to have been?"