"I may have wished for such love, foolishly, but I have never met with
it."

"Perhaps you are mistaken--"

Clementine looked fixedly at Thaddeus, imagining that there was less of
love than of cupidity in his thoughts; her eyes measured him from head
to foot and poured contempt upon him; then she crushed him with the
words, "Poor Malaga!" uttered in tones which a great lady alone can
find to give expression to her disdain. She rose, leaving Thaddeus half
unconscious behind her, slowly re-entered her boudoir, and went back to
Adam's chamber.

An hour later Paz returned to the sick-room, and began anew, with death
in his heart, his care of the count. From that moment he said nothing.
He was forced to struggle with the patient, whom he managed in a way
that excited the admiration of the doctors. At all hours his watchful
eyes were like lamps always lighted. He showed no resentment to
Clementine, and listened to her thanks without accepting them; he seemed
both dumb and deaf. To himself he was saying, "She shall owe his life to
me," and he wrote the thought as it were in letters of fire on the walls
of Adam's room. On the fifteenth day Clementine was forced to give up
the nursing, lest she should utterly break down. Paz was unwearied. At
last, towards the end of August, Bianchon, the family physician, told
Clementine that Adam was out of danger.

"Ah, madame, you are under no obligation to me," he said; "without his
friend, Comte Paz, we could not have saved him."

The day after the meeting of Paz and Clementine in the kiosk, the
Marquis de Ronquerolles came to see his nephew. He was on the eve of
starting for Russia on a secret diplomatic mission. Paz took occasion
to say a few words to him. The first day that Adam was able to drive
out with his wife and Thaddeus, a gentleman entered the courtyard as the
carriage was about to leave it, and asked for Comte Paz. Thaddeus, who
was sitting on the front seat of the caleche, turned to take a letter
which bore the stamp of the ministry of Foreign affairs. Having read it,
he put it into his pocket in a manner which prevented Clementine or Adam
from speaking of it. Nevertheless, by the time they reached the porte
Maillot, Adam, full of curiosity, used the privilege of a sick man
whose caprices are to be gratified, and said to Thaddeus: "There's no
indiscretion between brothers who love each other,--tell me what there
is in that despatch; I'm in a fever of curiosity."

Clem