Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/425

THE AMERICAN had talked too much—ten times too much. "Nonsense!" his patient protested; "a man sentenced to death is allowed to get in first all he can. He can't talk after, and if he was ever a talker—! Have you never read an account of an execution in a newspaper?" he went on. "Don't they always set a lot of people at the prisoner—lawyers, reporters, priests—to make him talk? But it's not Newman's fault; he sits there as mum as a death's-head."

The doctor observed that it was time the wound should be dressed again; MM. de Grosjoyaux and Ledoux, who had already witnessed this delicate operation, taking Newman's place as assistants. Newman withdrew, learning from his fellow-watchers in the other room that they had received a telegram from the Marquis to the effect that their message had been delivered in the Rue de l'Université too late to allow him to take the morning train, but that he would start with his mother in the evening. Our friend wandered away into the village again and walked about restlessly for two or three hours. The day had, in its regulated gloom, the length of some interminable classic tragedy. At dusk he came back and dined with the doctor and M. Ledoux. The dressing of Valentin's wound had been a very critical business; the question was definitely whether he could bear a repetition of it. He then declared that he must beg of Mr. Newman to deny himself for the present the satisfaction of sitting with M. de Bellegarde; more than any one else, apparently, he had the flattering but fatal gift of interesting him more than he could bear. M. Ledoux, at this, swallowed a glass of 395