"She went naked," replied the doctor.

The colonel made a gesture of horror and turned pale. The doctor saw
in that sudden pallor alarming symptoms; he felt the colonel's pulse,
found him in a violent fever, and half persuaded, half compelled him
to go to bed. Then he gave him a dose of opium to ensure a calm sleep.

Eight days elapsed, during which Colonel de Sucy struggled against
mortal agony; tears no longer came to his eyes. His soul, often
lacerated, could not harden itself to the sight of Stephanie's
insanity; but he covenanted, so to speak, with his cruel situation,
and found some assuaging of his sorrow. He had the courage to slowly
tame the countess by bringing her sweetmeats; he took such pains in
choosing them, and he learned so well how to keep the little conquests
he sought to make upon her instincts--that last shred of her intellect
--that he ended by making her much TAMER than she had ever been.

Every morning he went into the park, and if, after searching for her
long, he could not discover on what tree she was swaying, nor the
covert in which she crouched to play with a bird, nor the roof on
which she might have clambered, he would whistle the well-known air of
"Partant pour la Syrie," to which some tender memory of their love
attached. Instantly, Stephanie would run to him with the lightness of
a fawn. She was now so accustomed to see him, that he frightened her
no longer. Soon she was willing to sit upon his knee, and clasp him
closely with her thin and agile arm. In that attitude--so dear to
lovers!--Philippe would feed her with sugarplums. Then, having eaten
those that he gave her, she would often search his pockets with
gestures that had all the mechanical velocity of a monkey's motions.