I have read that a fever sometimes burns out love; and that a man rises cured not only of his illness, but of the passion which consumed him, when he succumbed to it. But this was not my fate; from the moment when that dull anxiety about I knew not what took shape and form, and I saw on the green curtains of my bed a pale child's face--a face that now wept and now gazed at me in sad appeal--from that moment Mademoiselle was never out of my waking mind for an hour. God knows, if any thought of me on her part, if any silent cry of her heart to me in her troubles, had to do with this; but it was the case. However, on the next day the fear and the weight were removed. I suppose that Father Benôit had made up his mind to broach the subject, which hitherto he had shunned with care; for his first question, after he had learned how I did, brought it up. "You have never asked what happened after you were injured, M. le Vicomte?" he said with a little hesitation. "Do you remember?" "I remember all," I said with a groan. He drew a breath of relief. I think he had feared that there was still something amiss with the brain. "And yet you have never asked?" he said. "Man! cannot you understand why--why I have not asked?" I cried hoarsely, rising, and sinking back in my seat in uncontrollable agitation. "Cannot you understand that until I asked I had hope? But now, torture me no longer! Tell me, tell me all, man, and then----" "There is nothing but good to tell," he answered cheerfully, endeavouring to dispel my fears at the first word. "You know the worst. Poor M. de Gontaut was killed on the stairs. He was too infirm to flee. The rest, to the meanest servant, got away over the roofs of the neighbouring houses." "And escaped?" "Yes. The town was in an uproar for many hours, but they were well hidden. I believe that they have left the country." "You do not know where they are, then?" "No," he answered, "I never saw any of them after the outbreak. But I heard of them being in this or that château--at the Harincourts', and elsewhere. Then the Harincourts left--about the middle of October, and I think that M. de St. Alais and his family went with them." I lay for a while too full of thankfulness to speak. Then, "And you know nothing more?" "Nothing," the Curé answered. But that was enough for me. When he came again I was able to walk with him on the terrace, and after that I gained strength rapidly. I remarked, however, that as my spirits rose, with air and exercise, the good priest's declined. His kind, sensitive face grew day by day more sombre, his fits of silence longer. When I asked him the reason, "It goes ill, it goes ill," he said. "And, God forgive me, I had to do with it." "Who had not?" I said soberly.