CHAPTER XXVI

AN UNCONSCIOUS AVOWAL

Walking slowly, step by step, beside her whose power had so quickly and
so wholly subjugated him, watching over her removal with more than
paternal solicitude, Henri de Prerolles, sustained by a ray of hope, drew
a memorandum-book from his pocket, wrote upon a slip of paper a name and
an address, and, giving it to the groom, ordered him to go ahead of the
litter and telephone to the most celebrated surgeon in Paris, requesting
him to go as quickly as possible to the domicile of Mademoiselle de
Vermont, and, meantime, to send with the greatest despatch one of the
eight-spring carriages from the stables.

It was noon by the dial on the grand-stand when the litter was finally
deposited in a safe place. The surgeon could hardly arrive in less than
two hours; therefore, the General realized that he must rely upon his own
experience in rendering the first necessary aid.

He lifted Valentine's hand, unbuttoned the glove, laid his finger on her
pulse, and counted the pulsations, which were weak, slow, and irregular.

While the wife of the gate-keeper kept a bottle of salts at the nostrils
of the injured girl, Henri soaked a handkerchief in tincture of arnica
and sponged her temples with it; then, pouring some drops of the liquid
into a glass of water, he tried in vain to make her swallow a mouthful.
Her teeth, clenched by the contraction of muscles, refused to allow it to
pass into her throat. At the end of half an hour, the inhalation of the
salts began to produce a little effect; the breath came more regularly,
but that was the only symptom which announced that the swoon might soon
terminate. The landau with the high springs arrived. The General ordered
the top laid back, and helped to lift and place upon the cushions on the
back seat the thin mattress on which Zibeline lay; then he took his place
on the front seat, made the men draw the carriage-top back into its
proper position, and the equipage rolled smoothly, and without a jar, to
its destination. On the way they met the first carriages that had arrived
at the Auteuil hippodrome, the occupants of which little suspected what
an exciting dramatic incident had occurred just before the races.
Zibeline's servants, by whom she was adored, awaited their mistress at
the threshold, and for her maids it was an affair of some minutes to
undress her and lay her in her own bed. During this delay, the surgeon,
who had hastened to answ