of his red nose in old chronicles all the day long, careless of the cold so long as there was anything left to find out in his curious researches.
My weariness of all this may easily be imagined. Ten times had Sperver taken me over the stables and the kennels; the dogs were beginning to know me. I knew by heart all the coarse pleasantries of the major-domo over his bottles and Marie Lagoutte’s invariable replies. Sébalt’s melancholy was infecting me; I would gladly have blown a little on his horn to tell the mountains of my ennui, and my eyes were incessantly directed towards Fribourg.
Still the disorder of Yeri-Hans, lord of Nideck, was taking its usual course, and this gave my only occupation any serious interest. All the particulars which Sperver had made me acquainted with appeared clearly before me; sometimes the count, waking up with a start, would half rise, and supported on his elbow, with neck outstretched and haggard eyes, would mutter, “She is coming, she is coming!”
Then Gideon would shake his head and ascend the signal-tower, but neither right nor left could the Black Plague be discovered.
After long reflection upon this strange malady I had come to the conclusion that the sufferer was insane. The strange influence that the old hag exercised over him, his alternate phases of madness and lucidity, all confirmed me in this view.
Medical men who have given especial attention to the subject of mental aberrations are well aware that periodical madness is of not unfrequent occurrence. In some cases the illness appears several times in the year, in others at only particular seasons of the year. I know at Fribourg an old lady who for thirty years past has regularly presented herself at the door of the asylum. At her own request they place her in confinement; then the unhappy woman every night passes through the terrible scenes of the French Revolution, of which she was a witness in her youth. She trembles in the hands of the executioner; she fancies herself drenched with the blood of the victims; she weeps and cries aloud incessantly. In the course of a few weeks the mind returns to its wonted seat, and she is restored to liberty with the full expectation that she will return again in a year.
“The Count of Nideck is suffering from a similar attack,” I said; “unknown chains unite his fate with that of the Black Plague. Who can tell?” thought I; “that woman once was young, perhaps beautiful!”
And my imagination, once launched, carried me into the interesting regions of romance; but I was careful to tell no one what I thought. If I had opened out those conjectures to Sperver he would never have forgiven me for imagining that there could have been any intimacy between his master and the Black Plague; and as for Mademoiselle Odile, I dared not suggest insanity to her.
The poor young lady was evidently most unhappy. Her refusal to marry had so embittered the count against her that he could scarcely endure to have her in his presence. He bitterly reproached her with her ingratitude and disobedience, and expatiated upon the cruelty of ungrateful children. Sometimes even violent curses followed his daughter’s visits. Things at last were so bad that I thought myself obliged to interfere. I therefore waited one evening on the countess in the antechamber and entreated her to relinquish her personal attendance upon her father. But here arose, contrary to all expectations, quite an unforeseen obstacle. In spite of all my entreaties she steadily insisted on watching by her father and nursing him as she had done hitherto.
“It is my duty,” she repeated, “and no arguments will shake my purpose,” she said firmly.
“Madam,” I replied as a last effort, “the medical profession, too, has its duties, and an honourable man must fulfil them even to harshness and cruelty; your presence is killing your father.”
I shall remember all my life the sudden change in the expression of the face of Odile.
My solemn words of warning seemed to cause the blood to flow back to the heart; her face became white as marble, and her large blue eyes, fixed steadily upon mine, seemed to read into the most secret recesses of my soul.
“Is that possible, sir?” she stammered; “upon your honour, do you declare this? Tell me truly!”
“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.”
Here the good
