not afraid of anything: I would risk it. I'm the cause of his sufferings; ought not I to console him? After all, his insanity is restricted to asking for my hand: he'll have no more occasion to ask it when I'm his wife; then we'll not have anything to fear. The poor child is sick only from excess of love; cure it, dear father, but not too thoroughly. I want him always to be mad enough to love me as I love him."
"We'll see," responded M. Auvray. "Wait till the fever is past. If he's ashamed of having been ill, if I find him sad or melancholy when he gets well, I can't answer for anything. If, on the other hand, he looks back upon his disorder without shame or regret, if he speaks of it resignedly, if he meets the people who have been taking care of him without repugnance, I can laugh at the idea of relapses."
"Ah, father, why should he be ashamed of having loved to excess? It is a noble and generous madness which never enters petty souls. And how can he feel repugnance on meeting those who have nursed him? For they are we!"
After six days of delirium., an abundant perspiration carried off the fever, and the patient began to convalesce. When he found himself in a strange room, between Mme. and Mlle. Auvray, his first idea was that he was still at the hotel of the Quatre Saisons, in the principal street of Ems. His feebleness, his emaciation, and the presence
