Then again he placed something, that for the moment I saw it looked like a piece of gold-beater's leaf, to my lips, holding his head so far that his own breathing could not affect it. "Yes," he said in soliloquy, very low. Then he plucked my shirt-breast open and applied the stethoscope, shifted it from point to point, listened with his ear to its end, as if for a very far-off sound, raised his head, and said, in like manner, softly to himself, "All appreciable action of the lungs has subsided." Then turning from the sound, as I conjectured, he said: "Seventy drops, allowing ten for waste, ought to hold him fast for six hours and a half-that is ample. The experiment I tried in the carriage was only thirty drops, and showed a highly sensitive brain. It would not do to kill him, you know. You are certain you did not exceed _seventy_?" "Perfectly," said the lady. "If he were to die the evaporation would be arrested, and foreign matter, some of it poisonous, would be found in the stomach, don't you see? If you are doubtful, it would be well to use the stomach-pump." "Dearest Eugenie, be frank, be frank, do be frank," urged the Count. "I am _not_ doubtful, I am _certain_," she answered. "How long ago, exactly? I told you to observe the time." "I did; the minute-hand was exactly there, under the point of that Cupid's foot." "It will last, then, probably for seven hours. He will recover then; the evaporation will be complete, and not one particle of the fluid will remain in the stomach." It was reassuring, at all events, to hear that there was no intention to murder me. No one who has not tried it knows the terror of the approach of death, when the mind is clear, the instincts of life unimpaired, and no excitement to disturb the appreciation of that entirely new horror. The nature and purpose of this tenderness was very, very peculiar, and as yet I had not a suspicion of it. "You leave France, I suppose?" said the ex-Marquis. "Yes, certainly, tomorrow," answered the Count. "And where do you mean to go?" "That I have not yet settled," he answered quickly. "You won't tell a friend, eh?" "I can't till I know. This has turned out an unprofitable affair." "We shall settle that by-and-by." "It is time we should get him lying down, eh," said the Count, indicating me with one finger. "Yes, we must proceed rapidly now. Are his night-shirt and night-cap--you understand--here?" "All ready," said the Count. "Now, Madame," said the doctor, turning to the lady, and making her, in spite of the emergency, a bow, "it is time you should retire." The lady passed into the room in which I had taken my cup of treacherous coffee, and I saw her no more. The Count took a candle and passed through the door at the further end of the room, returning with a roll of linen in his hand. He bolted first one door then the other. They now, in silence, proceeded to undress me rapidly. They were not many minutes in accomplishing this.