“Yes, madam, upon my honour.”

There was a long and painful silence, only broken at last by these words in a low voice:—­

“Let God’s will be done!”

And with downcast eyes she withdrew.

The day after this scene, about eight in the morning, I was pacing up and down in Hugh Lupus’s tower, thinking of the count’s illness, of which I could not foretell the issue—­and I was thinking too of my patients at Fribourg, whom I might lose by too prolonged an absence—­when three discreet taps upon my door turned my thoughts into another channel.

“Come in!”

The door opened, and Marie Lagoutte stood within, dropping me a low curtsey.

This old dame’s visit put me out, and I was going to beg her to postpone her visit, when something mysterious in her countenance caught my attention.  She had thrown over her shoulders a red-and-green shawl; she was biting her lips, with her head down, and as soon as she had closed the door she opened it again, and peeped out, to make sure that no one had followed her.

“What does she want with me?” I thought; “what is the meaning of all these precautions?”

And I was quite puzzled.

“Monsieur le Docteur,” said the worthy lady, advancing towards me, “I beg your pardon for disturbing you so early in the morning, but I have a very serious thing to tell you.”

“Pray tell me all about it, then.”

“It is the count.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, sir; you know that I sat up with him last night.”

“I know.  Pray sit down.”

She sat before me in a great arm-chair, and I could not help noticing the energetic character of her head, which on the evening of my arrival at the castle had only seemed to me grotesque.

“Doctor,” she resumed after a short pause and with her dark eyes upon me, “you know I am not timid or easily frightened.  I have seen so many dreadful things in the course of my life that I am astonished at nothing now.  When you have seen Marengo, Austerlitz, and Moscow, there is nothing left that can put you out.”

“I am sure of that, ma’am.”

“I don’t want to boast; that is not my reason for telling you this; but it is to show you that I am not an escaped lunatic, and that you may believe me when I tell you what I say I have seen.”

This was becoming interesting.

“Well,” the good woman resumed, “last night, between nine and ten, just as I was going to bed, Offenloch came in and said to me, ’Marie, you will have to sit up with the count to-night.’  At first I felt surprised.  ‘What! is not mademoiselle going to sit up?’ ’No, mademoiselle is poorly, and you will have to take her place.’  Poor girl, she is ill; I knew that would be the end of it, I told her so a hundred times; but it is always so.  Young people won’t believe those who are older; and then, it is her Father.  So I took my knitting, said good night to Tobias, and went into monseigneur’s room.  Sperver was there waiting for me, and went to bed; so there I was, all alone.”