returned to have a farewell hunt in the outhouses of the chateau, and
who kindly offered to relieve the servants in their painful task of
keeping watch over me.

As I was wholly unconscious of my illness, it was but natural that
the unexpected presence of the hermit in my room should cause me
considerable astonishment, and throw me into a state of great agitation.
My attacks had been so violent that evening that I had no strength left.
I abandoned myself, therefore, to my melancholy ravings, and, taking the
good man's hand, I asked him if it was really Edmee's corpse that he had
placed in the arm-chair by my bedside.

"It is Edmee's living self," he answered, in a low voice; "but she is
still asleep, my dear monsieur, and we must not wake her. If there is
anything you would like, I am here to attend to you, and right gladly I
do it."

"My good Patience, you are deceiving me," I said; "she is dead, and
so am I, and you have come to bury us. But you must put us in the same
coffin, do you hear? for we are betrothed. Where is her ring? Take it
off and put it on my finger; our wedding-night has come."

He tried in vain to dispel this hallucination. I held to my belief that
Edmee was dead, and declared that I should never be quiet in my shroud
until I had been given my wife's ring. Edmee, who had sat up with me
for several nights, was so exhausted that our voices did not awaken
her. Besides, I was speaking in a whisper, like Patience, with that
instinctive tendency to imitate which is met with only in children or
idiots. I persisted in my fancy, and Patience, who was afraid that it
might turn into madness, went and very carefully removed a cornelian