at I desire to see
him."

"I will send him to you at once. You shall certainly see him to-day."

"Thank you."

These two words were spoken dryly by the countess, and with an emphasis
which might have struck Maurice and caused him to suspect her intentions
and possibly to frustrate them, had he not been so thoroughly convinced
that her own state required medical care, and had he not known that her
stoical fortitude made it easier for her to suffer than to admit that
she _could_ suffer.

Maurice found Madeleine where he had left her. The count had just
awakened, much refreshed. He was softly stroking her head and saying
with the same indistinct utterance, "Good angel! good angel!"

At the sight of Maurice the old troubled look passed again over his
face, and he whispered hoarsely,--

"He shall never know. Never, never let him know. It would kill me! kill
me!"

Maurice had told Madeleine how much better he had found his grandmother,
and was giving her the gratifying intelligence that Madame de Gramont
had said the cakes reminded her of Brittany (the highest praise possible
for her to bestow on anything), when the doctor entered.

His patient, he said, had made marvellous progress; but that was owing,
in a great measure, to admirable nursing; and he nodded approvingly to
Madeleine.

"If physicians had only at their disposal a train of well-informed,
efficient, conscientious nurses to distribute among their patients,
medical services might be of some use in the world; but, as it is, we
might make a new application of the old proverb, that God sends us
dinners, and the devil sends us cooks who make the dinners valueless; a
physician gives his orders and prescriptions, and a careless nurse
renders them null."

Dr. Bayard was not a man who dealt in compliments, even in a modified
form; he was sagacious, abrupt, straightforward, and at times spoke his
mind rather sharply. He had been impressed by Madeleine's unremitting
care of his patient, and, in declaring that the count's convalescence
was, in a large degree, due to her prudence and vigilance, he simply
said what he thought.

"I am glad to see you have removed your charge to this room," he
continued. "Change of scene and of air is always good, when practicable.
I recommend a short drive to-morrow. I never keep an invalid imprisoned
one hour longer than is necessary."

Maurice delivered his grandmother's message; and Dr. Bayard promised to
call upon her before