Blind Love

"Merci, mon Dieu! que sais-je? What do I know about it?" he replied.

"The wife of the English milord is so much attached to her husband that

she leaves him in his long illness--"

"His long illness?"

"Certainly--Mademoiselle is not, perhaps, acquainted with the

circumstances--his long illness; and does not come even to see his dead

body after he is dead. There is a wife for you--a wife of the English

fashion!"

Fanny gasped.

"After he is dead! Is Lord Harry dead? When did he die?"

"But, assuredly, Mademoiselle has not heard? The English milord died on

Thursday morning, a week and more ago, of consumption, and was buried

in the cemetery of Auteuil last Saturday. Mademoiselle appears

astonished."

"En effet, Monsieur, I am astonished."

"Already the tombstone is erected to the memory of the unhappy young

man, who is said to belong to a most distinguished family of Ireland.

Mademoiselle can see it with her own eyes in the cemetery."

"One word more, Monsieur. If Monsieur would have the kindness to tell

her who was the nurse of milord in his last seizure?"

"But certainly. All the world knows the widow La Chaise. It was the

widow La Chaise who was called in by the doctor. Ah! there is a

man--what a man! What a miracle of science! What devotion to his

friend! What admirable sentiments! Truly, the English are great in

sentiments when their insular coldness allows them to speak. This widow

can be found--easily found."

He gave Fanny, in fact, the nurse's address. Armed with this, and

having got out of the landlord the cardinal fact of Lord Harry's

alleged death, the lady's-maid went in search of this respectable

widow.

She found her, in her own apartments, a respectable woman indeed,

perfectly ready to tell everything that she knew, and evidently quite

unsuspicious of anything wrong. She was invited to take charge of a

sick man on the morning of Thursday: she was told that he was a young

Irish lord, dangerously ill of a pulmonary disorder; the doctor, in

fact, informed her that his life hung by a thread, and might drop at

any moment, though on the other hand he had known such cases linger on

for many months. She arrived as she had been ordered, at midday: she

was taken into the sick-room by the doctor, who showed her the patient

placidly sleeping on a sofa: the bed had been slept in, and was not yet

made. After explaining the medicines which she was to administer, and

the times when they were to be given, and telling her something about

his diet, the doctor left her alone with the patient.