"I could not get out sooner," said La Mole.

"Eh! Heavens! you should have sent for me."

"Whom had I to send?"

"True, I forgot where we are. I had told those ladies, but they would not listen to me. If my prescriptions had been followed instead of those of that a.s.s, Ambroise Pare, you would by this time have been in a condition to go in pursuit of adventures together, or exchange another sword-thrust if such had been your good pleasure; but we shall see. Does your friend listen to reason?"

"Scarcely."

"Hold out your tongue, my dear gentleman."

Coconnas thrust out his tongue to La Mole, making such a hideous grimace that the pract.i.tioner shook his head a second time.

"Oho!" he muttered, "contraction of the muscles. There's no time to be lost. This evening I will send you a potion ready prepared; you must make him take it three times: once at midnight, once at one o'clock, and once at two."

"Very well."

"But who will make him take it?"

"I will."

"You?"

"Yes."

"You give me your word?"

"On my honor."

"And if any physician should attempt to abstract the slightest portion to a.n.a.lyze it and discover what its ingredients are"--

"I will spill it to the last drop."

"This also on your honor?"

"I swear it!"

"Whom shall I send you this potion by?"

"Any one you please."

"But my messenger"--

"Well?"

"How will he get to you?"

"That is easily managed. He will say that he comes from Monsieur Rene, the perfumer."

"That Florentine who lives on the Pont Saint Michel?"

"Exactly. He is allowed to enter the Louvre at any hour, day or night."

The man smiled.

"In fact," said he, "the queen mother at least owes him that much. It is understood, then; he will come from Maitre Rene, the perfumer. I may surely use his name for once: he has often enough practised my profession without having taken his degree either."

"Then," said La Mole, "I may rely on you."

"You may."

"And about the payment?"

"Oh, we will arrange about that with the gentleman himself when he is well again."

"You may be quite easy on that score, for I am sure he will pay you generously."

"I believe you. And yet," he added with a strange smile, "as the people with whom I have to do are not wont to be grateful, I should not be surprised if when he is on his legs again he should forget or at least not think to give a single thought to me."

"All right," said La Mole, smiling also, "in that case I should have to jog his memory."

"Very well, we'll leave it so. In two hours you will receive the medicine."

"Au revoir!"

"You said"--

"Au revoir."

The man smiled.

"It is always my custom," he added, "to say adieu! So adieu, Monsieur de la Mole. In two hours you will have the potion. You understand, it must be given at midnight--in three doses--at intervals of an hour."

So saying he took his departure, and La Mole was left alone with Coconnas.

Coconnas had heard the whole conversation, but understood nothing of it; a senseless babble of words, a senseless jangling of phrases, was all that came to him. Of the whole interview he remembered nothing except the word "midnight."

He continued to watch La Mole, who remained in the room, pacing thoughtfully up and down.

The unknown doctor kept his word, and at the appointed time sent the medicine, which La Mole placed on a small silver chafing-dish, and having taken this precaution, went to bed.

This action on the part of La Mole gave Coconnas a little quietude. He tried to shut his eyes, but his feverish slumbers were only a continuation of his waking delirium. The same phantom which haunted him by day came to disturb him by night; across his hot eyelids he still saw La Mole as threatening as ever, and a voice kept repeating in his ear: "Midnight, midnight, midnight!"

Suddenly the echoing note of a clock's bell awoke in the night and struck twelve. Coconnas opened his blood-shot eyes; the fiery breath from his breast scorched his dry lips, an unquenchable thirst devoured his burning throat; the little night lamp was burning as usual, and its dim light made thousands of phantoms dance before his wandering eyes.

And then a horrible vision--he saw La Mole get out of bed, and after walking up and down the room two or three times, as the sparrow-hawk flits before the little bird it is trying to fascinate, come toward him with his fist clinched.

Coconnas seized his poniard and prepared to plunge it into his enemy.