‘Now,’ said the young man, ‘do you feel more comfortable?’ I whispered that I felt better. ‘That is right,’ said he. ‘You must keep quiet whether you sleep or not. I am not a doctor, but I know a thing or two. I will visit you again in two hours with more soup and _eau-de-vie_.’ And he said to the fat man in his native tongue, ‘Come, uncle, she will do. She will not die. Let us leave her.’ They then withdrew. CHAPTER IV ALPHONSE’S CONJECTURES I turned my face to the wall and closed my eyes, and two hours, and perhaps more than two hours, passed, during which I did not sleep. I then opened my eyes and looked about me. I had intelligence enough to observe that my skirt and bodice had been removed and that I was wrapped in coarse, thick blankets. Then, feeling a kind of pricking pain about the forehead, I raised my hand to my brow and stroked with my finger-nails the strips of parchment-like stuff with which it was plaistered. What can this be? I thought; and then a most awful and terrible feeling of bewilderment possessed me. ‘Who am I?’ I cried in a voice that was still no louder than a whisper, ‘and where am I? And--and--and----’ The young man whom the stout person had called Alphonse entered, bearing a bowl of soup and a glass of weak brandy and water upon a tray. ‘Have you slept?’ said he. I feebly shook my head. ‘Well,’ he exclaimed with the characteristic drawl of the Frenchman when he speaks English, ‘it is not to be expected that you should sleep or that you should require sleep. You have been asleep for three days, and now you shall drink this soup and afterwards this cognac,’ and, seating himself, he fed me and gave me to drink as before. He placed the tray upon the deck of the little cabin, and sat contemplating me for a while with an air of respect that seemed a habit in him, mingled with an expression of commiseration. ‘You will get on,’ he said, ‘you will recover. You will be strong by the time we get to Toulon.’ ‘Toulon?’ I said, speaking faintly. ‘Yes, madame, Toulon. We are going to Toulon. This brick is now proceeding to that port.’ ‘Toulon?’ I exclaimed. ‘Madame knows without doubt where Toulon is?’ I gazed at him in silence. ‘Does it fatigue you to speak?’ said the young man whom I will hereafter call Alphonse, for by no other name did I ever know him. ‘No,’ said I in a whisper. ‘Then tell me, madame, how it happened that you were in the miserable condition from which we rescued you?’ I tried to think, but I could not think. I forced my gaze inwards, but beheld nothing but blackness. I strained the vision of my mind, but it was like straining the balls of the sight at a dark wall in a midnight of blackness. ‘You do not remember,’ said the young Frenchman, shaking his head, ‘the circumstances that brought you into the miserable condition from which we released you?’ ‘I can remember nothing,’ I whispered. ‘What was my condition?’