“That it could not be done. I am persuaded that it cannot. But I wish it could.” He sighed. “And then, if it could, I am not sure that it would be the right course to take.” The priest, with compressed lips, contemplated Gilbert as though he found in him a study of absorbing interest. But before he could make any pronouncement the door opened, and the Marquise was visible on the threshold, with a candle in her hand. “I wish that one of you would come and look at Louis,” she said with a troubled air. “I am afraid that he is in a good deal of pain, and his shoulder is by no means in a satisfactory state. I am not at all easy about him.” “Is he light-headed?” asked Gilbert abruptly. “Light-headed? No,” answered his mother. “Why should you think so? Oh, I suppose he has been so?” “Once,” said Château-Foix shortly; and then, partly for the sake of torturing himself, partly because his answer seemed to require expansion, he went on: “He was delirious for several hours the day after he got his hurt, but then he was in a high fever. I asked because I wondered if he had any fever to-night.” “That is just what I cannot make out,” said the Marquise. “I do not think he has, but he does not seem himself. I should like to send for a surgeon.” “You have an excellent one in the house, Madame,” put in the priest half-jestingly, looking at Gilbert. The Marquis winced almost perceptibly, and made hasty disclaimer. “No,” he said, “I know nothing of surgery, and it seems I have done little good. Will you go up to him, Father?” He turned away as though the matter were settled, and, with a renewal of the impalpable sense of discomfort, the priest followed the Marquise out of the room. Madame de Château-Foix recited symptoms and apprehensions to him all the way up the staircase, but she let him go in alone. The shield of Chantemerle, woven in the faded tapestry of the great bed, replaced above Louis’ head the elegances of his Parisian couch with a sort of symbolism. He had exchanged the tutelage of his Cupids and poppies for the guardianship of the nine red merlettes on a golden ground, quartered with the saltine azure on a field of silver—the coat of that honourable and very ancient Poitevin house of which, with Gilbert, he was the last male representative. Since it was summer the four gaunt posts stood up unclothed, and by the light of a couple of candles burning on a console by the side of the bed, the priest, as he entered, saw its occupant turn his head towards him. He looked faintly surprised and pleased. “I have come to see how you are,” said the Curé, smiling down upon him. “Are you in pain, dear boy?” Louis smiled back. “I do not see that there is any heroic purpose to be served by denying it,” he replied with his usual light manner, but in a voice that betrayed him. “Yes, I am.” “May I look at your shoulder, Louis?”