As soon as the physician judged it prudent, Monsieur de Loris was brought into his bed-chamber, and took his hand affectionately; but the Duke turned his head away, and pressed his eyes upon the pillows, as if to avoid the sight and all its concomitant ideas. The good old Count went on to comfort him in a kindly tone, but not knowing the truth, he followed the most painful track he could pursue, and by addressing a man who had destroyed his own happiness as he would have done one who suffered alone under the bereaving hand of fate, he poured gall and wormwood into all the consolations he offered.
The shock, however, though terrible, was not without a good effect, for it seemed to rouse the unhappy Duke from the dull despair that overwhelmed him, and, at all events, it broke the first dreadful feelings of returning to scenes which had each its own peculiar associations of agony to pour forth upon him.
Still, the day that he first came forth from his own chamber was full of misery. The sun was shining through all the windows, checkering the staircases and saloons with gay and gladsome light. Under the directions of Father Ferdinand, everything had been removed which had peculiarly belonged to the Duchess, and alterations had been made, in various ways, to break in every direction the chain of associations which we knew could alone prove painful. Monsieur de Villardin's eye, however, still wandered wildly over every object around, and I do not know that it was not really more distressing to him to miss all the objects he expected to see, than it would have been to find them in their accustomed places.
I heard him mutter to himself, "They are all gone!--they are all gone!" and sinking into the fauteuil in which he had been accustomed to sit when in the saloon, he covered his eyes with his hands, and remained musing for several minutes. At that moment the door of the room was gently opened, and Mademoiselle de Villardin, warned and persuaded by every means in our power to be careful of what she said and did, was led in by Monsieur de Loris. The Duke heard the door open, and withdrawing his hand from his eyes, saw his child for the first time since the death of her mother. He had scarcely been able to reach the saloon with the assistance of two people, but when his eyes fell upon his daughter, he started up without aid, sprang forward, and catching her to his heart, burst into a passionate fit of tears.