ossession.

The count's illness, caused perhaps by a chill under the walnut-tree,
became alarming in a few hours. I went to Tours for a famous doctor
named Origet, but was unable to find him until evening. He spent that
night and the next day at Clochegourde. We had sent the huntsman in
quest of leeches, but the doctor, thinking the case urgent, wished to
bleed the count immediately, but had brought no lancet with him. I
at once started for Azay in the midst of a storm, roused a surgeon,
Monsieur Deslandes, and compelled him to come with the utmost celerity
to Clochegourde. Ten minutes later and the count would have died; the
bleeding saved him. But in spite of this preliminary success the doctor
predicted an inflammatory fever of the worst kind. The countess was
overcome by the fear that she was the secret cause of this crisis. Two
weak to thank me for my exertions, she merely gave me a few smiles, the
equivalent of the kiss she had once laid upon my hand. Fain would I have
seen in those haggard smiles the remorse of illicit love; but no, they
were only the act of contrition of an innocent repentance, painful to
see in one so pure, the expression of admiring tenderness for me whom
she regarded as noble while reproaching herself for an imaginary wrong.
Surely she loved as Laura loved Petrarch, and not as Francesca da Rimini
loved Paolo,--a terrible discovery for him who had dreamed the union of
the two loves.

The countess half lay, her body bent forwards, her arms hanging, in a
soiled armchair in a room that was like the lair of a wild boar. The
next evening before the doctor departed he said to the countess, who had
sat up the night before, that she must get a nurse, as the illness would
be a long one.

"A nurse!" she said; "no, no! We will take care of him," she added,
looking at me; "we owe it to ourselves to save him."

The doctor gave us both an observing look full of astonishment. The
words were of a nature to make him suspect an atonement. He promised
to come twice a week, left directions for the treatment with Monsieur
Deslandes, and pointed out the threatening symptoms that might oblige
us to send for him. I asked the countess to let me sit up the alternate
nights and then, not without difficulty, I persuaded her to go to bed on
the third night. When the house was still and the count sleeping I heard
a groan from Henriette's room. My anxiety was so keen that I went to
her. She was kneeling before the cruci