Chapter III. The Cure - Page 2

marquis to a window.

The latter then saw the countess seated on the ground between Genevieve's legs. The peasant-girl, armed with a huge horn comb, was giving her whole attention to the work of disentangling the long black hair of the poor countess, who was uttering little stifled cries, expressive of some instinctive sense of pleasure. Monsieur d'Albon shuddered as he saw the utter abandonment of the body, the careless animal ease which revealed in the hapless woman a total absence of soul.

"Philippe, Philippe!" he muttered, "the past horrors are nothing!--Is there no hope?" he asked.

The old physician raised his eyes to heaven.

"Adieu, monsieur," said the marquis, pressing his hand. "My friend is expecting me. He will soon come to you."

"Then it was really she!" cried de Sucy at d'Albon's first words. "Ah! I still doubted it," he added, a few tears falling from his eyes, which were habitually stern.

"Yes, it is the Comtesse de Vandieres," replied the marquis.

The colonel rose abruptly from his bed and began to dress.

"Philippe!" cried his friend, "are you mad?"

"I am no longer ill," replied the colonel, simply. "This news has quieted my suffering. What pain can I feel when I think of Stephanie? I am going to the Bons-Hommes, to see her, speak to her, cure her. She is free. Well, happiness will smile upon us--or Providence is not in this world. Think you that that poor woman could hear my voice and not recover reason?"

"She has already seen you and not recognized you," said his friend, gently, for he felt the danger of Philippe's excited hopes, and tried to cast a salutary doubt upon them.

The colonel quivered; then he smiled, and made a motion of incredulity. No one dared to oppose his wish, and within a very short time he reached the old priory.

"Where is she?" he cried, on arriving.

"Hush!" said her uncle, "she is sleeping. See, here she is."

Philippe then saw the poor insane creature lying on a bench in the sun. Her head was protected from the heat by a forest of hair which fell in tangled locks over her face. Her arms hung gracefully to the ground; her body lay easily posed like that of a doe; her feet were folded under her without effort; her bosom rose and fell at regular intervals; her skin, her complexion, had that porcelain whiteness, which we admire so much in the clear transparent faces of children. Standing motionless beside her, Genevieve held in her hand a branch which Stephanie had doubtless climbed a tall poplar to obtain, and the poor idiot was gently waving it above her sleeping companion, to chase away the flies and cool the atmosphere.

The peasant-woman gazed at Monsieur Fanjat and the colonel; then, like an animal