"Calm! It is you who must be calm," retorted the Duke, "and here you are fighting with a passion! It is passion that has awakened this poor heart physically as well as morally. It is love, it is happiness, enthusiasm, tenderness, that you need. Well, nothing is lost then. Tell me, do you wish her to love you, this girl? She shall love you. What am I saying? She does love you, she has always loved you, from the very first day. Now I recall the whole. I see plainly. It is you--"
"Stop, stop!" said the Marquis, falling back into his arm-chair. "I cannot hear it; it stifles me."
But after a momentary silence, during which the Duke watched him with anxiety, he seemed better, and said with a smile, which restored to his expressive face all its youthful charm,--
"And yet what you said then was true! It is perhaps love. Perhaps it is nothing else. You have soothed me with an illusion, and I have given myself up to it like a child. Feel of my heart now; it is refreshed. The dream has passed over it like a cool breeze."
"Since you are feeling better," said the Duke, after making sure that he was really calm, "you ought to make the most of it and try to sleep. You do not sleep, and that is dreadful! In the morning, when I start for a hunt, I often see your lamp still burning."
"And yet, for many nights past, I have not been at work."
"Well, then, if it is sleeplessness, you shall not keep watch alone; I will answer for that. Let me see; you are going to lie down, to lie down on your bed."
"Yes, I see: you would suffocate. Well, you shall sit up and sleep. I will stay close by. I will talk to you about her until you no longer hear me."
The Duke conducted his brother to his room, placed him in a large arm-chair, took care of him as a mother would take care of her child, and seated himself near him, holding his hand in his own. Then all Urbain's natural kindliness returned, and he said, gratefully,--
"I have been hateful this evening. Tell me again that you forgive me."
"I do what is better: I love you," replied Gaëtan; "and I am not the only one, either. She is also thinking about you at this very hour."
"O Heaven! you are lying. You are lulling me with a celestial song; but you are lying. She loves no one; she will never love me!"