“There will be no need,” she replied, in a tone of confidence.  “My little mam’zelle will be sound asleep in ten minutes after she has taken my draught.”

I went into the room with her to have a look at our patient.  She had not stirred yet, but was precisely in the position in which I placed her after the operation was ended.  There was something peculiar about this which distressed me.  I asked Mother Renouf to move her gently and bring her face more toward me.  The burning eyes opened widely as soon as she felt the old woman’s arm under her, and she looked up, with a flash of intelligence, into my face.  I stooped down to catch the whisper with which her lips were moving.

“You told me not to stir,” she murmured.

“Yes,” I said; “but you are not to lie still till you are cramped and stiff.  Are you in much pain now?”

“He told me not to stir,” muttered the parched lips again, “not to stir.  I must lie quite still, quite still, quite still!”

The feeble voice died away as she whispered the last words, but her lips went on moving, as if she was repeating them to herself still.  Certainly there was mischief here.  My last order, given just before her mind began to wander, had taken possession of her brain, and retained authority over her will.  There was a pathetic obedience in her perfect immobility, united with the shifting, restless glance of her eyes, and the ceaseless ripple of movement about her mouth, which made me trebly anxious and uneasy.  A dominant idea had taken hold upon her which might prove dangerous.  I was glad when Mother Renouf had finished stewing her decoction of poppy-heads, and brought the nauseous draught for the girl to drink.

But whether the poppy-heads had lost their virtue, or our patient’s nervous condition had become too critical, too full of excitement and disturbance, I cannot tell.  It is certain that she was not sleeping in ten minutes’ or in an hour’s time.  Old Dame Tardif went off to her bedroom, and Mother Renouf took her place by the girl’s side.  Tardif could not be persuaded to leave the kitchen, though he appeared to be falling asleep heavily, waking up at intervals, and starting with terror at the least sound.  For myself I scarcely slept at all, though I found the fern bed a tolerably comfortable resting-place.

The gale that Tardif had foretold came with great violence about the middle of the night.  The wind howled up the long, narrow ravine like a pack of wolves; mighty storms of hail and rain beat in torrents against the windows, and the sea lifted up its voice with unmistakable energy.  Now and again a stronger gust than the others appeared to threaten to carry off the thatched roof bodily, and leave us exposed to the tempest with only the thick stone walls about us; and the latch of the outer door rattled as if some one outside was striving to enter.  I am not fanciful, but just then the notion came across me that if that door opened