“You would be a great scamp if you did not.”

The surgeon hardly left the wounded man himself.  He visited him four or five times a day, once at least every night, and almost every day remained for hours sitting by his bedside, examining the patient, and experiencing, according to the symptoms, the most violent changes from hope to fear, and back again.  It was thus he learned a part, at least, of Daniel’s history,—­that he was to marry a daughter of Count Ville-Handry, who himself had married an adventuress; and that they had separated him from his betrothed by a forged letter.  The doctor’s conjectures were thus confirmed:  such cowardly forgers would not hesitate to hire an assassin.

But the worthy surgeon was too deeply impressed with the dignity of his profession to divulge secrets which he had heard by the bedside of a patient.  And when the magistrate, devoured by impatience, came to him every three or four days, he always answered,—­

“I have nothing new to tell you.  It will take weeks yet before you can examine my patient.  I am sorry for it, for the sake of Evariste Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, who must be tired of prison; but he must wait.”

In the meantime, Daniel’s long delirium had been succeeded by a period of stupor.  Order seemed gradually to return to his mind.  He recognized the persons around him, and even stammered a few sensible words.  But he was so excessively weak, that he remained nearly all the time plunged in a kind of torpor which looked very much like death itself.  When he was aroused for a time, he always asked in an almost inaudible voice,—­

“Are there no letters for me from France?”

Invariably, Lefloch replied, according to orders received from the doctor,—­

“None, lieutenant.”

But he told a falsehood.  Since Daniel was confined to his bed, three vessels had arrived from France, two French and one English; and among the despatches there were eight or ten letters for Lieut.  Champcey.  But the old surgeon said to himself, not without good reason,—­

“Certainly it is almost a case of conscience to leave this unfortunate man in such uncertainty:  but this uncertainty is free from danger, at least; while any excitement would kill him as surely and as promptly as I could blow out a candle.”

A fortnight passed; and Daniel recovered some little strength; at last he entered upon a kind of convalescence—­if a poor man who could not turn over in bed unaided can be called a convalescent.  But, with his returned consciousness, his sufferings also reappeared; and, as he gradually ascertained how long he had been confined, his anxiety assumed an alarming character.

“There must be letters for me,” he said to his man; “you keep them from me.  I must have them.”

The doctor at last came to the conclusion that this excessive agitation was likely to become as dangerous as the excitement he dreaded so much; so he said one day,—­