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 answer the call, found Henri nervously walking about
from one drawing-room to the other; and, having received information as
to the details of the fall, he soon entered the bedchamber. While
awaiting the sentence of life or of death which must soon be pronounced,
he who considered himself the chief cause of this tragic event continued
to pace to and fro in the gallery--that gallery where, under the
intoxication of a waltz, the demon of temptation had so quickly
demolished all his resolutions of resistance. A half-hour--an age!--
elapsed before the skilled practitioner reappeared. "There is no
fracture," he said, "but the cerebral shock has been such that I can not
as yet answer for the consequences. If the powerful reactive medicine
which I have just given should bring her back to her senses soon, her