As soon as the physician appeared, M. de Valorsay rose and shook
hands with him; then, offering him an arm-chair, he remarked: "I
will not conceal from you, doctor, that I have in some measure
prepared this gentleman"--designating M. Wilkie--"for your
terrible revelation."
By the doctor's attitude, a keen observer might have divined the
secret trepidation that always precedes a bad action which has
been conceived and decided upon in cold blood.
"To tell the truth," he began, speaking slowly, and with some
difficulty, "now that the moment for speaking has come, I almost
hesitate. Our profession has painful exigencies. Perhaps it is
now too late. If there had been any of the count's relatives in
the house, or even an heir at the time, I should have insisted
upon an autopsy. But now----"
On hearing the word "autopsy," M. Wilkie looked round with
startled eyes. He opened his lips to interrupt the speaker, but
the physician had already resumed his narrative. "Besides, I had
only suspicions," he said, "suspicions based, it is true, upon
strange and alarming circumstances. I am a man, that is to say, I
am liable to error. In the kingdom of science it would be
unpardonable temerity on my part to affirm----"
"To affirm what?" interrupted M. Wilkie.
The physician did not seem to hear him, but continued in the same
dogmatic tone.
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