"Well, old man," said I, "how did you find her?"
"Find her?" growled the doctor--"I didn't find her at all. If this is a hoax," he continued, "all I can say, Macrorie, is this, that it's a devilish stupid one."
"A hoax? What--didn't find her?" I gasped.
"Find her? Of course not. There's no such a person. Why, I could not even find the house."
"What--do you mean? I--I don't understand--" I faltered.
"Why," said the doctor, who saw my deep distress and disappointment, "I mean simply this: I've been riding about this infernal country all day, been to Montmorency, called at fifty houses, and couldn't find anybody that knew any thing at all about any lady whatever."
At this, my consternation was so great that I couldn't say one single word. This news almost took my breath away. The doctor looked sternly at me for some time, and then was about to more on.
This roused me.
"What!" I cried; "you're not thinking of going back?"
"Back? Of course, I am. That's the very thing I'm going to do."
"For God's sake, doctor," I cried, earnestly, "don't go just yet! I tell you, the lady is there, and her condition is a most perilous one.
I told you before how I saved her, I left there at midnight, last night, in spite of my fatigue, and travelled all night to get you. I promised her that you would be there early this morning. It's now nearly two in the afternoon. Good Heavens! doctor, you won't leave a fellow in such a fix?"
"Macrorie," said the doctor, "I'm half dead with fatigue. I did it for your sake, and I wouldn't have done it for another soul--no, not even for Jack Randolph. So be considerate, my boy."
"Doctor," I cried, earnestly, "it's a case of life and death!"
A long altercation now followed; but the end of it was that the doctor yielded, and, in spite of his fatigue, turned back, grumbling and growling.
So we rode back together--the doctor, groaning and making peevish remarks; I, oblivious of all this, and careless of my friend's discomfort. My mind was full of visions of the lady--the fair unknown.
I was exceeding anxious and troubled at the thought that all this time she had been alone, without any medical assistance. I pictured her to myself as sinking rapidly into fever and delirium. Stimulated by all these thoughts, I hurried on, while the doctor with difficulty followed. At length, we arrived within half a mile of the Falls; but I could not see any signs of the house which I wished to find, or of the road that led to it. I looked into all the roads that led to the river; but none seemed like that one which I had traversed.
The doctor grew every moment more vexed.
"Look here now, Macrorie," said he, at last--"I'll go no farther--no, not a step. I'm used up. I'll go into the nearest house, and wait."
Saying this, he turned abruptly, and went to a house that was close by I then dismounted, went to the upper bank of the Montmorency, where it joins the St. Lawrence below the Falls, and looked down.
The ice was all out. The place which yesterday had been the scene of my struggle for life was now one vast sheet of dark-blue water. As I looked at it, an involuntary shudder passed through me; for now I saw the full peril of my situation.
Looking along the river, I saw the place where I must have landed, and on the top of the steep bank I saw a house which seemed to be the one where I had found refuge. Upon this, I went back, and, getting the doctor, we went across the fields to this house. I knocked eagerly at the door. It was opened, and in the person of the _habitant_ before me I recognized my host of the evening before.
"How is madame?" I asked, hurriedly and anxiously.
"Madame?"
"Tea, madame--the lady, you know."
"Madame? She is not here."
"Not here!" I cried.
"Non, monsieur."
"Not here? What! Not here?" I cried again. "But she must be here.
Didn't I bring her here last night?"
"Certainly, monsieur; but she's gone home."
At this, there burst from the doctor a peal of laughter--so loud, so long, so savage, and so brutal, that I forgot in a moment all that he had been doing for my sake, and felt an almost irresistible inclination to punch his head. Only I didn't; and, perhaps, it was just as well.
The sudden inclination passed, and there remained nothing but an overwhelming sense of disappointment, by which I was crushed for a few minutes, while still the doctor's mocking laughter sounded in my ears.
"How was it?" I asked, at length--"how did she get off? When I left, she was in a fever, and wanted a doctor."
"After you left, monsieur, she slept, and awoke, toward morning, very much better. She dressed, and then wanted us to get a conveyance to take her to Quebec. We told her that you had gone for a doctor, and that she had better wait. But this, she said, was impossible. She would not think of it. She had to go to Quebec as soon as possible, and entreated us to find some conveyance. So we found a wagon at a neighbor's, threw some straw in it and some skins over it, and she went away."
"She went!" I repeated, in an imbecile way.
"Oui, monsieur."
"And didn't she leave any word?"
"Monsieur?"
"Didn't she leave any message for--for me?"
"Non, monsieur."
"Not a word?" I asked, mournfully and despairingly.
The reply of the _habitant_ was a crushing one:
"_Pas un mot_, _monsieur_!"
The doctor burst into a shriek of sardonic laughter.
CHAPTER IX.
BY ONE'S OWN FIRESIDE.--THE COMFORTS OF A BACHELOR.--CHEWING THE CUD OF SWEET AND BITTER FANCY.--A DISCOVERY FULL OF MORTIFICATION AND EMBARRASSMENT.--JACK RANDOLPH AGAIN.--NEWS FROM THE SEAT OF WAR.
By six o'clock in the evening I was back in my room again. The doctor had chaffed me so villanously all the way back that my disappointment and mortification had vanished, and had given place to a feeling of resentment. I felt that I had been ill-treated. After saving a girl's life, to be dropped so quietly and so completely, was more than flesh and blood could stand. And then there was that confounded doctor. He fairly revelled in my situation, and forgot all about his fatigue.
However, before I left him, I extorted from him a promise to say nothing about it, swearing if he didn't I'd sell out and quit the service. This promise he gave, with the remark that he would reserve the subject for his own special use.
Once within my own room, I made myself comfortable in my own quiet way, viz.: