The next thing was to send for a certain Frere Allonville, a man who
had been a doctor before he was converted and became a Dominican
friar, and who still practiced, and was aid to do cures by miracle.
I know this, that it would have been a miracle if his treatment had
cured my brother, for the first thing he did was to bleed him, the
very thing that Dr. Dirkius had always told us was the sure way to
kill him, when he was losing so much blood already. Then the friar
turned out Tryphena, on the plea that he must have a nurse who
understood his language. As if poor Tryphena, after living thirteen
years in France, could not understand the tongue quite enough for any
purpose, and as if she did not know better how to take care of
Eustace than any one else! But of course the language was not the
real reason that she was shut out, and kept under guard, as it were,
just as much as I was, while a Sister of Charity was brought in to
act as my brother's nurse, under my mother, who, look you, never had
been nurse at all, and always fainted at any critical moment.
Assuredly I knew why they were thus isolating my brother from all of
us. I heard steps go upstairs, not only of the Dominican quack
doctor, but of the Abbe Montagu, who had been previously sent to
convert us. The good old Bonchamp, who had a conscience, was away at
St. Germain with Gaspard de Nidemerle, and I--I had no one to appeal
to when I knew they were harassing the very life out of my dearest,
dearest brother, by trying to make him false to the Church and the
faith he had fought for.
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