Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/269

Rh kept it by me to give him when he comes to see me. Now it is better in your hands."

Here one of the surgeons, who for some time had been hovering uneasily about the group, interposed and courteously requested the visitors to withdraw. He said, as he attended them to the door, "Pardon me, ladies, for interrupting your conversation, but I must take care of my patient, who will be in a high fever to-night if he excites himself any further. Indeed, I fear mischief has been done already—not by you, ladies," he added with a bow, "but by one of his comrades, who came to him this morning full of yesterday's triumphal entry into the city."

"I hope," Madame de Talmont contrived to say, in spite of her extreme agitation,—"I hope he is not severely wounded?"

"Severely, but not dangerously," was the answer. "He is one of the finest young men we have, madame: an ensign in the Emperor's Chevalier Guard, and already very favourably noticed by his Imperial Majesty.—Adieu, madame and mademoiselle: we shall be happy to see you another day."