Memoirs of a Physician by Alexandre Dumas Read Free Book Online

bottle, that the meat seemed savory, and that after supper meant ten o’clock. It was now only a quarter to nine. Besides, it was probable that, after supper, the course of ideas in Therese’s brain would take a change, and that she would then think of anything else rather than of the ” dear child.”
    But time was slipping past, to the great vexation of Gilbert, when all at once one of the joints of the allied dames to burn.
    The cry of the alarmed cook was heard, which put an end to all conversation, for every one hurried to the theater of the catastrophe. Gilbert profited by this culinary panic among the ladies, to glide down, the stairs like a shadow.
    Arrived at the first story, he found the leading of the window well adapted to hold his rope, and, attaching it by a slip-knot, he mounted the window-sill and began rapidly to descend.
    He was still suspended between the window and the ground, when a rapid step sounded in the garden beneath him. He had sufficient time, before the step reached him,
     
    MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 35
    to return, and holding fast by the knots, he watched to see who this untimely visitor was.
    It was a man, and as he proceeded from the direction of the little door, Gilbert did not doubt for an instant but that it was the happy mortal whom Nicole was expecting.
    He fixed all his attention, therefore, upon this second intruder, who had thus arrested him in the midst of his perilous descent. By his walk, by a glance at his profile seen from beneath his three-cornered hat, and by the particular mode in which this hat was placed over the corner of his attentive ear, Gilbert fancied he recognized the famous Beausire, that exempt whose acquaintance Nicole had made in Taverney.
    Almost immediately he saw Nicole open the door of the pavilion, hasten into the garden, leaving the door open, and, light and active as a bird, direct her steps toward the greenhouse that is to say, in the direction in which M. Beausire was already advancing.
    This was most certainly not the first rendezvous which had taken place, since neither one nor the other betrayed the least hesitation as to their place of meeting.
    ” Now I can finish my descent,” thought Gilbert ; ” for if Xicole has appointed this hour for meeting her lover, it must be because she is certain of being undisturbed. Andre must be alone then oh, heavens ! alone.”
    In fact, no noise was heard in the house, and only a faint light gleamed from the windows of the ground floor. Gilbert alighted upon the ground without any accident, and, unwilling to cross the garden, he glided gently along the wall until he came to a clump of trees, crossed it in a stooping posture, and arrived at the door which Nicole had left open, without having been discovered. There, sheltered by an immense aristolochia, which was trained over the door and hung down in large festoons, he observed that the outer apartment, which was a spacious antechamber, was, as he had guessed, perfectly empty. This antechamber communicated with the interior of the house by means of two* doors, one opened, the other closed ; Gilbert guessed that the open one was that belonging to
     
    36 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.
    Nicole’s chamber. He softly entered this room, stretching out his hands before him for fear of accident, for the room was entirely without light ; but at the end of a sort of corridor was seen a glass door whose framework was clearly discerned against the light of the adjoining apartment. On the inner side of this glass door was drawn a muslin curtain.
    As Gilbert advanced along the corridor, lie heard a feeble voice speaking in the lighted apartment ; it was Andre’s, and every drop of Gilbert’s blood rushed to his heart. Another voice replied to hers ; it was Philip’s. The young man was anxiously inquiring after his sister’s health.
    - Gilbert, now on his guard, proceeded a few steps further, and placed himself behind one of those truncated columns surmounted by a bust, which at