They were mistaken. The very springs of life in her existence seemed to
have been drained dry. She did not appear to suffer, but she remained in
a death-like torpor, from which nothing could arouse her. They spoke to
her but she made no response. Did she hear? did she comprehend? It was
extremely doubtful.
By rare good fortune the mother of the proprietor proved to be a
good, kind-hearted old woman, who would not leave the bedside of
Marie-Anne--of Mme. Dubois, as she was called at the Traveller's Rest.
It was not until the evening of the third day that they heard Marie-Anne
utter a word.
"Poor girl!" she sighed; "poor, wretched girl!"
It was of herself that she spoke.
By a phenomenon not very unusual after a crisis in which reason has been
temporarily obscured, it seemed to her that it was someone else who had
been the victim of all the misfortunes, whose recollections gradually
returned to her like the memory of a painful dream.
What strange and terrible events had taken place since that August
Sabbath, when, on leaving the church with her father, she heard of the
arrival of the Duc de Sairmeuse.
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