solicitude for me and my own feeling of exhaustion made me yield, though
I could not explain his conduct. In one of these struggles my vein
opened again, and I returned to bed before Marcasse noticed it.
Gradually I sank into a deep swoon, and I was almost dead when, seeing
my blue lips and purple cheeks, he took it into his head to lift up the
bed-clothes, and found me lying in a pool of blood.

However, this was the most fortunate thing that could have happened to
me. For several days I remained in a state of prostration in which there
was but little difference between my waking and sleeping hours. Thanks
to this, I understood nothing, and therefore did not suffer.

One morning, having managed to make me take a little nourishment, and
noticing that with my strength my melancholy and anxiety were returning,
Marcasse announced, with a simple, genuine delight, that Edmee was not
dead, and that they did not despair of saving her. These words fell upon
me like a thunderbolt; for I was still under the impression that this
frightful adventure was a delusion of my delirium. I began to shout and
to brandish my arms in a terrible manner. Marcasse fell on his knees by
my bed and implored me to be calm, and a score of times he repeated the
following words, which to me were like the meaningless words one hears
in dreams:

"You did not do it on purpose; I know well enough. No, you did not do it
on purpose. It was an accident; a gun going off in your hand by chance."

"Come, now, what do you mean?" I exclaimed impatiently. "What gun? What
accident? What have I to do with it?"

"Don't you know, then, sir, how she was hit?"