France -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction; Women -- France -- Fiction
She walked up to the wounded man with a courage of which no one of the
persons present had as yet felt capable, and held a light to his face.
Thereupon, instead of the plebeian features and garments which they
expected to see, they discovered a young man with noble features and
fashionably dressed, albeit in hunting costume. He had a trifling wound
on one hand, but his torn clothes and his swoon indicated a serious
fall.
"I should say as much!" said Lelièvre; "he fell from a height of twenty
feet. He was just putting his leg over the wall when the colonel fired,
and a few grains of small shot or salt in the right hand prevented his
getting a hold. The fact is, I saw him fall, and when he got to the
bottom he wasn't thinking much about running away, poor devil!"
"Would any one believe," said one of the female servants, "that a man so
nicely dressed would amuse himself by stealing?"
"And his pockets are full of money!" said another, who had unbuttoned
the supposed thief's waistcoat.
"It is very strange," said the colonel, gazing, not without emotion, at
the man stretched out before him. "If the man is dead it's not my fault;
examine his hand, madame, and see if you can find a particle of lead in
it."
"I prefer to believe you, monsieur," replied Madame Delmare, who, with a
self-possession and moral courage of which no one would have deemed her
capable, was closely scrutinizing his pulse and the arteries of his
neck. "Certainly," she added, "he is not dead, and he requires speedy
attention. The man hasn't the appearance of a thief and perhaps he
deserves our care; even if he does not deserve it, our duty calls upon
us women to care for him none the less."
Thereupon Madame Delmare ordered the wounded man to be carried to the
billiard room, which was nearest. A mattress was placed on several
chairs, and Indiana, assisted by her women, busied herself in dressing
the wounded hand, while Sir Ralph, who had some surgical knowledge, drew
a large quantity of blood from him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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