“Ah, mon Dieu!” exclaimed Madame Geffroi, stopping short. She was evidently taken aback. Even in his present plight Louis, as usual, owed much to his looks. “Ah, the poor young man!” She knelt down by the Vicomte and possessed herself of his wrist. “Fever,” she remarked, shaking her head; and then, looking up at Château-Foix: “Show me the wound.” Gilbert complied, quite expecting to hear his bandaging condemned. But Madame Geffroi touched the wounded shoulder gently with her coarse, red, peasant’s fingers, and as gently drew the slashed coat over it again. “Well enough for a man,” she remarked trenchantly. “You shall have some more linen—but next time I will bandage it myself, I think.” It was such a relief to see a woman in his place that the Marquis clung to her opinion, and asked her, rather helplessly, what he ought to do. She told him, “Nothing, till the fever goes,” and they both looked at the unconscious young man in silence, she sitting back on her heels, Gilbert standing gloomily beside her. Louis tossed his head from side to side, and flung out an arm violently into the hay, with a heavy sigh. The Marquis thought that he heard the sigh echoed; at any rate, Madame Geffroi put her hand for an instant on the burning forehead. “Poor boy, poor boy!” she said almost softly, and, getting to her feet, retired as abruptly as she had come. The slow hours crawled on with the shifting sunlight, until about three o’clock Louis ceased tossing and sank into a sort of stupor. Château-Foix was consequently a good deal surprised and alarmed when, after lying motionless for about an hour, he suddenly sat bolt upright in the hay and addressed some unknown person by name. Gilbert sprang up and went over to him. “Lie down!” he said. “Don’t you know me, Louis?” “Of course I do,” responded the Vicomte in a thick voice. His eyes were extraordinarily bright. “You are Antoine de Bercy . . . I wish I had killed you . . . liar! . . . you are not fit to speak her name. . . .” His voice tailed off into something incoherent. “Lie down!” said Gilbert emphatically, and forced him to obey. He was becoming very uneasy. A man of the most punctilious delicacy in a matter of the kind, he would rather have heard anything than his cousin’s private affairs. The few words had already considerably enlightened him as to the reason of Louis’ duel with De Bercy, which the Vicomte had so unmistakably intimated that he did not wish to reveal.