“Thank God I am here!” he said; “I lost no time, mam’zelle, after your letter reached me.  I will save Monsieur le Cure; I will save them both, if I can. Ma foi! he is a good man, this cure, and we must not let him perish.  He has no authority over me, and I will go this moment and force my way in, if the door is fastened.  Adieu, my dear little mam’zelle.”

He was gone before I could speak a word, striding with quick, energetic tread across the court.  The closed door under the eaves opened readily.  In an instant the white head of Monsieur Laurentie passed the casement, and I could hear the hum of an earnest altercation, though I could not catch a syllable of it.  But presently Tardif appeared again in the doorway, waving his cap in token of having gained his point.

I went back to the village at once to carry the good news, for it was the loneliness of the cure that had weighed so heavily on every heart, though none among them dare brave his displeasure by setting aside his command.  The quarantine was observed as rigidly as ever, but fresh hope and confidence beamed upon every face, and I felt that they no longer avoided me, as they had begun to do before Tardif’s arrival.  Now Monsieur Laurentie could leave his patient, and sit under the sheltering eaves in the cool of the morning or evening, while his people could satisfy themselves from a distance that he was still in health.

The physician whom Jean fetched from Noireau spoke vaguely of Richard’s case.  It was very malignant, he said, full of danger, and apparently his whole constitution had been weakened by some protracted and grave malady.  We must hope, he added.

Whether it was in hope or fear I awaited the issue, I scarcely know.  I dared not glance beyond the passing hour; dared not conjecture what the end would be.  The past was dead; the future yet unborn.  For the moment my whole being was concentrated upon the conflict between life and death, which was witnessed only by the cure and Tardif.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

THE LAST DEATH.

It seemed to me almost as if time had been standing still since that first morning when Monsieur Laurentie had left my side, and passed out of my sight to seek for my husband in the fever-smitten dwelling.  Yet it was the tenth day after that when, as I took up my weary watch soon after daybreak, I saw him crossing the court again, and coming toward me.

“What had he to say?  What could impel him to break through the strict rule which had interdicted all dangerous contact with himself?  His face was pale, and his eyes were heavy as if with want of rest, but they looked into mine as if they could read my inmost soul.

“My daughter,” he said, “I bade you leave even your duty in my keeping.  Now I summon you to fulfil it.  Your duty lies yonder, by your husband’s side in his agony of death.”