Near at hand stood a table laden with phials and such utensils as one sees by the bedside of the wealthy sick.

All this I beheld in a languid, unreasoning fashion through my half-open lids, and albeit the luxury of the room and the fine linen of my bed told me that this was neither my Paris lodging in the Rue St.Antoine, nor yet my chamber at the hostelry of the Lys de France, still I taxed not my brain with any questions touching my whereabouts.
I closed my eyes, and I must have slept again: when next I opened them a burly figure stood in the deep bay of the latticed window, looking out through the leaded panes.
I recognised the stalwart frame of Michelot, and at last I asked myself where I might be.

It did not seem to occur to me that I had but to call him to receive an answer to that question.

Instead, I closed my eyes again, and essayed to think.

But just then there came a gentle scratching at the door, and I could hear Michelot tiptoeing across the room; next he and the one he had admitted tiptoed back towards my bedside, and as they came I caught a whisper in a voice that seemed to drag me to full consciousness.
"How fares the poor invalid this morning ?" "The fever is gone, Mademoiselle, and he may wake at any moment; indeed, it is strange that he should sleep so long." "He will be the better for it when he does awaken.