Blanche had
felt their resolution fail them. A black presentiment made them regret
their heroic imprudence; and, moreover, since several minutes they had
begun to feel an icy shudder, and painful shootings across the temples;
but, attributing these symptoms to the fright occasioned by Morok, their
good and valiant natures soon stifled all these fears. They exchanged
glances of affection, their courage revived, and both of them--Rose
on one side of the partition, and Blanche on the other--proceeded with
their painful task. Gabriel, carried to the doctors' private room, had
soon recovered his senses. Thanks to his courage and presence of mind,
his wound, cauterized in time, could have no dangerous consequences.
As soon as it was dressed he insisted on returning to the women's ward,
where he had be offering pious consolations to a dying person at the
moment they had come to inform him of the frightful danger caused by the
escape of Morok.

A few minutes before the missionary entered the room, Rose and Blanche
arrived almost together at the term of their mournful search, one from
the left, the other from the right-hand row of beds, separated by the
partition which divided the hall into compartments. The sisters had not
yet seen each other. Their steps tottered as they advanced, and they
were forced, from time to time, to lean against the beds as they passed
along. Their strength was--rapidly failing them. Giddy with fear and
pain, they appeared to act almost mechanically. Alas! the orphans had
been seized almost at the same moment with the terrible symptoms of
cholera. In consequence of that species of physiological phenomenon, of
which we have already spoken--a phenomenon by no means rare in twins,
which had already been displayed on one or two occasions of their
sickness--their organizations seemed liable to the same sensations, the
same simultaneous accidents, like two flowers on one stem, which bloom
and fade together. The sight of so much suffering, and so many deaths,
had accelerated the development of this dreadful disease. Already, on
their agitated and altered countenances, they bore the mortal tokens of
the contagion, as they came forth, each on her own side, from the
two subdivisions of the room in which they had vainly sought their
governess. Until now separated by the partition, Rose and Blanche had
not yet seen each other; but, when at length their eyes met, there
ensued a heart rending scene.

CHAPTE