"But," he added, thinking of his own safety, for he had recognized the Comte d'Herouville, who in his rage had forgotten to disguise his voice, "have him baptized at once and do not speak of his danger to the mother, or you will kill her." The gesture of satisfaction which escaped the count when the child's death was prophesied, suggested this speech to the bonesetter as the best means of saving the child at the moment.

Beauvouloir now hastened to carry the infant back to its mother who had fainted, and he pointed to her condition reprovingly, to warn the count of the results of his violence.

The countess had heard all; for in many of the great crises of life the human organs acquire an otherwise unknown delicacy.

But the cries of the child, laid beside her on the bed, restored her to life as if by magic; she fancied she heard the voices of angels, when, under cover of the whimperings of the babe, the bonesetter said in her ear:-- "Take care of him, and he'll live a hundred years.

Beauvouloir knows what he is talking about." A celestial sigh, a silent pressure of the hand were the reward of the leech, who had looked to see, before yielding the frail little creature to its mother's embrace, whether that of the father had done no harm to its puny organization.