All I know is that I knew nothing certain,because the fear died almost as soon as it was born.The man had scarcely seated himself again,or I conceived the thought,when a second alarm outside caused him to spring to his feet.Scowling and muttering as he went,he hurried to the window.But before he reached it the door was dashed violently open,and Simon Fleix stood in the entrance.
There came in with him so blessed a rush of light and life as in a moment dispelled the horror of the room,and stripped me at one and the same time of fear and manhood.For whether I would or no,at sight of the familiar face,which I had fled so lately,Iburst into tears;and,stretching out my hands to him,as a frightened child might have done,called on him by name.Isuppose the plague was by this time so plainly written on my face that all who looked might read;for he stood at gaze,staring at me,and was still so standing when a hand put him aside and a slighter,smaller figure,pale-faced and hooded,stood for a moment between me and the sunshine.It was mademoiselle!
That,I thank God,restored me to myself,or I had been for ever shamed.I cried to them with all the voice I had left to take her away;and calling out frantically again and again that I had the plague and she would die,I bade the man close the door.
Nay,regaining something of strength in my fear for her,I rose up,half-dressed as I was,and would have fled into some corner to avoid her,still calling out to them to take her away,to take her away--if a fresh paroxysm had not seized me,so that I fell blind and helpless where I was.
For a time after that I knew nothing;until someone held water to my lips,and I drank greedily,and presently awoke to the fact that the entrance was dark with faces and figures all gazing at me as I lay.But I could not see her;and I had sense enough to know and be thankful that she was no longer among them.I would fain have bidden Maignan to begone too,for I read the consternation in his face.But I could not muster strength or voice for the purpose,and when I turned my head to see who held me--ah me!it comes back to me still in dreams--it was mademoiselle's hair that swept my forehead and her hand that ministered to me;while tears she did not try to hide or wipe away fell on my hot cheek.I could have pushed her away even then,for she was slight and small;but the pains came upon me,and with a sob choking my voice I lost all knowledge.
I am told that I lay for more than a month between life and death,now burning with fever and now in the cold fit;and that but for the tendance which never failed nor faltered,nor could have been outdone had my malady been the least infectious in the world.I must have died a hundred times,as hundreds round me did die week by week in that year.From the first they took me out of the house (where I think I should have perished quickly,so impregnated was it with the plague poison)and laid me under a screen of boughs in the forest,with a vast quantity of cloaks and horse-cloths cunningly disposed to windward.Here I ran some risk from cold and exposure and the fall of heavy dews;but,on the other hand,had all the airs of heaven to clear away the humours and expel the fever from my brain.
Hence it was that when the first feeble beginnings of consciousness awoke in me again,they and the light stole in on me through green leaves,and overhanging boughs,and the freshness and verdure of the spring woods.The sunshine which reached my watery eyes was softened by its passage through great trees,which grew and expanded as I gazed up into them,until each became a verdant world,with all a world's diversity of life.Grown tired of this,I had still long avenues of shade,carpeted with flowers,to peer into;or a little wooded bottom --where the ground fell away on one side--that blazed and burned with redthorn.Ay,and hence it was that the first sounds Iheard,when the fever left me at last,and I knew morning from evening,and man from woman,were the songs of birds calling to their mates.
Mademoiselle and Madame de Bruhl,with Fanchette and Simon Fleix,lay all this time in such shelter as could be raised for them where I lay;M.Francois and three stout fellows,whom Maignan left to guard us living in a hut within hail.Maignan himself,after seeing out a week of my illness,had perforce returned to his master,and no news had since been received from him.Thanks to the timely move into the woods,no other of the party fell ill,and by the time I was able to stand and speak the ravages of the disease had so greatly decreased that fear was at an end.
I should waste words were I to try to describe how the peace and quietude of the life we led in the forest during the time of my recovery sank into my heart;which had known,save by my mother's bedside,little of such joys.To awake in the morning to sweet sounds and scents,to eat with reviving appetite and feel the slow growth of strength,to lie all day in shade or sunshine as it pleased me,and hear women's voices and tinkling laughter,to have no thought of the world and no knowledge of it,so that we might have been,for anything we saw,in another sphere--these things might have sufficed for happiness without that which added to each and every one of them a sweeter and deeper and more lasting joy.Of which next.
I had not begun to take notice long before I saw that M.Francois and madame had come to an understanding;such an one,at least,as permitted him to do all for her comfort and entertainment without committing her to more than was becoming at such,a season.Naturally this left mademoiselle much in my company;a circumstance which would have ripened into passion the affection I before entertained for her,had not gratitude and a nearer observance of her merits already elevated my regard into the most ardent worship that even the youngest lover ever felt for his mistress.
