Take me at once--"
"Very good, monsieur. Follow me, this way."
She led him up into the room above her own, where she showed him,
triumphantly, an opening about the size of a two-franc piece, made
during the night, in a place, which, in each room, was above a
wardrobe. In order to look through it, Jules was forced to maintain
himself in rather a fatiguing attitude, by standing on a step-ladder
which the widow had been careful to place there.
"There's a gentleman with him," she whispered, as she retired.
Jules then beheld a man employed in dressing a number of wounds on the
shoulders of Ferragus, whose head he recognized from the description
given to him by Monsieur de Maulincour.
"When do you think those wounds will heal?" asked Ferragus.
"I don't know," said the other man. "The doctors say those wounds will
require seven or eight more dressings."
"Well, then, good-bye until to-night," said Ferragus, holding out his
hand to the man, who had just replaced the bandage.
"Yes, to-night," said the other, pressing his hand cordially. "I wish
I could see you past your sufferings."
"To-morrow Monsieur de Funcal's papers will be delivered to us, and
Henri Bourignard will be dead forever," said Ferragus. "Those fatal
marks which have cost us so dear no longer exist. I shall become once
more a social being, a man among men, and more of a man than the
sailor whom the fishes are eating. God knows it is not for my own sake
I have made myself a Portuguese count!"
"Poor Gratien!--you, the wisest of us all, our beloved brother, the
Benjamin of the band; as you very well know.
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