The Mesmerist's Victim

CHAPTER XXXII
MAN AND GOD

NOTHING had meanwhile changed in the other part of the house. But the old wizard had seen Balsamo enter his study and carry away the remains of Lorenza, which had recalled him to life.

Shrieks of “Fire!” from the old man reached Balsamo, when, rid of his dread visitors, he had carried Lorenza back to the sofa where only two hours previously she had been reposing before the old sage broke in.

Suddenly he appeared to Althota’ eyes.

“At last,” said the latter, drunk with joy; “I knew you would have fear! see how I can revenge myself! It was well you came, for I was going to set fire to the place.”

His pupil looked at him contemptuously without deigning a word.

“I am thirsty. Give me some water out of that bottle,” he said wildly.

His features were breaking up fast; no steady fire was in his eyes, only frightful gleams, sinister and infernal; under his skin was no more blood. His long arms in which he had carried Lorenza as though she were a child, now dangled like cuttlefish’s suckers. In anger had been consumed the strength momentarily restored him by desperation.

“You won’t give me to drink? You want to kill me with thirst. You covet my books and manuscripts and lore, my treasures! Ah, you think you will enjoy them – wait a bit. Wait, wait!”

Making a supreme effort, he drew from under the cushion on which he was huddled up a bottle which he uncorked. At the contact of air, a flame spouted up from the glass and Althotas, like a magic creature, shook this flame around him.

Instantly, the writings piled up around the old man, the scattered books, the rolls of papyrus extracted with so many hardships from the pyramids of Egypt and the libraries of Herculaneum, caught fire with the quickness of gunpowder. The marble flour was turned into a sheet of fire, and seemed to Balsamo one of those fiery rings described by Dante.

No doubt the old man thought that his disciple would rush among the flames to save him, but he was wrong. He merely drew himself away calmly out of the scope of the fire.

It enveloped the incendiary himself; but instead of frightening him it seemed as if he were in his element. The flame caressed him as if he were a salamander, instead of scorching him.

Though as he sat, it devoured the lower part of his frame, he did not seem to feel it.

On the contrary, the contact appeared salutary, for the dying one’s muscles relaxed, and a new serenity covered his features like a mask. Isolated at this ultimate hour, the spirit forgot the matter, and the old prophet, on his fiery car, seemed about to ascend to heaven.

Calm and resigned, analysing his sensations, listening to his own pangs as the last voices of earth, the old Magus let his farewell sullenly escape to life, hope and power.

“I die with no regret,” he said; “I have enjoyed all earthly boons; I have known everything; I have held all given to the creature to possess – and I am going into immortality.”

Balsamo sent forth a gloomy laugh which attracted the old man’s attention.

Althotas darted on him a look through the veiling flames, which was impressed with ferocious majesty.

“Yea, you are right: I had not foreseen one Thing – God!”

As if this mighty word had snatched the soul out of him, he dwindled up in the chair: his last breath had gone up to the Giver whom he had thought to deprive of it.

Balsamo heaved a sigh, and without trying to save a thing from the pyre of this modern Zoroaster dying, he went down to Lorenza, having set the trap so that it closed in all the fire as in an immense kiln.

All through the night the volcano blazed over Balsamo with the roaring of a whirlwind, but he neither sought to extinguish it or to flee. After having burnt up all that was combustible, and left the study bare to the sky, the fire went out, and Balsamo heard its last roar die away like Althota’ in a sigh.

CHAPTER XXXIII
THE FAINTING FITS

ANDREA was in her room, giving a final touch to her rebellious curls when she heard the step of her father, who appeared as she crossed the sill of the antechamber with a book under her arm.

“Good morning, Andrea,” said the baron; “going out, I see.”

“I am going to the Dauphiness who expects me.”

“Alone?”

“Since Nicole ran away, I have no attendant.”

“But you cannot dress yourself alone; no lady ever does it: I advised you quite another course.”

“Excuse me, but the Dauphiness awaits – ”

“My child, you will get yourself ridiculed if you go on like this and ridicule is fatal at court.”

“I will attend to it, father: but at present the Dauphiness will overlook the want of an elaborate attire for the haste I show to join her.”

“Be back soon for I have something serious to say. But you are never going out without a touch of red on the cheeks. They look quite hollow and your eyes are circled with large rings. You will frighten people thus.”

“I have no time to do anything more, father.”

“This is odious, upon my word,” said Taverney, shrugging his shoulders: “there is only one woman in the world who does not think anything of herself and I am cursed with her for my daughter. What atrociously bad luck! Andrea!”

But she was already at the foot of the stairs. She turned.

“At least, say you are not well,” he suggested. “That will make you interesting at all events.”

“There will be no telling lies there, father, for I feel really very ill at present.”

“That is the last straw,” grumbled the baron. “A sick girl on my hands, with the favor of the King lost and Richelieu cutting me dead! Plague take the nun!” he mumbled.

He entered his daughter’s room to ferret about for some confirmation of his suspicions.

During this time Andrea had been fighting with an unknown indisposition as she made her way through the shrubbery to the Little Trianon. Standing on the threshold, Lady Noailles made her understand that she was late and that she was looking out for her.

The titular reader to the Dauphiness, an abbe, was reciting the news, above all desonating on the rumor that a riot had been caused by the scarcity of corn and that five of the ringleaders had been arrested and sent to jail.

Andrea entered. The Dauphiness was in one of her wayward periods and this time preferred the gossip to the book; she regarded Andrea as a spoilsport. So she remarked that she ought not to have missed her time and that things good in themselves were not always good out of season.

Abashed by the reproach and particularly its injustice, the vice-reader replied nothing, though she might have said her father detained her and that her not feeling well had retarded her walk. Oppressed and dazed, she hung her head, and closing her eyes as if about to die, she would have fallen only for the Duchess of Noailles catching her.

“Oh, dear, she is white as her handkerchief,” said the Archduchess; “it is my fault for scolding her. Poor girl, take a seat! Do you think you could go on with your reading?”

“Certainly; I hope so, at least.”

But hardly had she cast her eyes on the page before black specks began to swarm and float before her sight and they made the print indecipherable.

She turned pale anew; cold perspiration beaded her brow; and the dark ring round her eyes with which Taverney had blamed his daughter enlarged so that the princesses exclaimed, as Andrea’s faltering made her raise her head.

“Again? look, duchess, the poor child must be ill, for she is losing her senses.”

“The young lady must get home as soon as possible,” said the Mistress of the Household drily. “Thus commences the small pox.”

The priest rose and stole away on tiptoe, not wanting to risk his beauty.

“Yes,” said the Dauphiness, in whose arms the girl came to, “you had better retire, but do not go indoors at once. A stroll in the garden may do you good. Oh, send me back my abbe, who is yonder among the tulips.”

Andrea was glad to be out doors, but she felt little improved. To reach the priest she had to make a circuit. She walked with lowered head, heavy with the weight of the strange dulness with which she had suffered since rising. She paid no attention to the birds hunting each other among the blooming hedges or to the bees humming amid the thyme and lilacs. She did not remark, only a few paces off, Dr. Jussieu giving a lesson in gardening to Gilbert. Since the pupil perceived the promenader, he made but a poor auditor.

“Oh, heavens!” interrupted he, suddenly extending his arms.

“What is the matter?” asked the lecturer.

“She has fainted!”

“Who? are you mad?”

“A lady,” answered Gilbert, quickly.

His pallor and his alarm would have betrayed him as badly as his cry of “She” but Jussieu had looked off in the other direction.

He saw Andrea fallen on a garden seat, ready to give up the last sensible breath.

It was the time when the King had the habit of paying the Dauphin a visit and came through this way. He suddenly appeared, holding a hothouse peach, with a true selfish king’s wonder, thinking whether it would not be better for the welfare of France that he should enjoy it rather than the princess.

“What is the matter?” he cried as he saw the two men racing towards the swooning girl whom he vaguely distinguished but did not recognize, thanks to his weak sight.

“The King!” exclaimed Jussieu, holding Andrea in his arms.

“The King!” murmured she, swooning away in earnest this time.

Approaching, the King knew her at last and exclaimed with a shudder:

“Again? this is an unheard-of thing! when people have such maladies, they ought to shut themselves up! it is not proper to go dying all over the house and grounds at all hours of the day and night.”

And on he went, grumbling all sorts of disagreeable things against poor Andrea. Jussieu did not understand the allusion, but seeing Gilbert in fear and anxiety, he said:

“Come along, Gilbert; you are stronger; carry Mdlle. de Taverney to her lodgings.”

“I?” protested Gilbert, quivering; “She would never forgive me for touching her. No, never!”

And off he ran, calling for help.

When the gardeners and some servants came up, they transported the girl to her rooms where they left her in the hands of her father.

But from another point arrived the Dauphiness, who had heard of the disaster from the King, and who not only came but brought her physician.

Dr. Louis was a young man, but he was intelligent.

“Your highness,” he reported to his patroness, “the young lady’s malady is quite natural and not usually dangerous.”

“And do you not prescribe anything?”

“There is absolutely nothing to be done.”

“Very well; she is luckier than I, for I shall die unless you send me the sleeping pills you promised.”

“I will prepare them myself when I get home.”

When he was gone the princess remained by her reader.

“Cheer up, my dear Andrea,” she said with a kindly smile. “There is nothing serious in your case for the doctor will not prescribe anything whatever.”

“I am glad to hear it, but he is a little wrong, for I do not feel at all well, I declare to you.”

“Still the ail cannot be severe at which a doctor laughs. Have a good sleep, my child; I will send somebody to attend you for I notice that you are quite alone. Will you accompany me, my Lord of Taverney?”

CHAPTER XXXIV
THE AVENGER

FOR a month Gilbert wandered round the sick girl’s lodgings, inventing work in the gardens in their neighborhood so that he could keep his eye constantly on the windows.

In this time he had grown paler; on his face youth was no more to be viewed than in the strange fire in his eyes and the dead-white and even complexion; his mouth curled by dissimulation, his sidelong glance, and the sensitive quivering of his muscles belonged already to later years.

Looking up, billhook in hand as a horseman struck sparks from the ride by the walk, he recognized Philip Taverney.

He moved towards the hedgerow. But the cavalier urged his horse towards him, calling out:

“Hey, Gilbert!”

The young man’s first impulse was for flight, for panic seized him and he felt like racing over the garden and the ponds themselves.

“Do you not know me, Gilbert?” shouted the captain in a gentle tone which was understood by the incorrigible youth.

Comprehending his folly, Gilbert stopped. He retraced his steps but slowly and with distrust.

“Not at first, my lord,” he said trembling: “I took you for one of the guards, and as I was idling, I feared to be brought to task and booked for punishment.”

Content with this explanation, Philip dismounted, put the bridle round his arm and leaning the other hand on Gilbert’s shoulder which visibly made him shudder, he went on:

“What is the matter, boy? Oh, I can guess; my father has been treating you with harshness and injustice. But I have always liked you.”

“So you have.”

“Then forget the evil others do you. My sister has also been always good to you.”

“Hardly,” replied Gilbert: with an expression no one could have understood for it embodied an accusation to Andrea, and an excuse for himself, bursting like pride while groaning like remorse.

“I understood,” said Philip: “she is a little high-handed at times, but she is good-hearted. Do you know where our good Andrea is at the present?”

“In her rooms, I suppose, sir,” gasped Gilbert, struck to the heart. “How am I to know – ”

“Alone, as usual, and pining?”

“In all probability, alone, since Nicole has run away.”

“Nicole run away?”

“With her sweetheart – at least it is presumed so,” said Gilbert, seeing that he had gone too far.

“I do not understand you, Gilbert. One has to wrench every word out of you. Try to be a little more amiable. You have sense, and learning, so do not mar your acquirements with an affected roughness unbecoming to your station in life, and not likely to lift you to a higher.”

“But I do not know anything about what you ask of me; I am a gardener and am ignorant of what goes on in the palace.”

“But, Gilbert, I believed you had eyes and owed some return in watchfulness to the house of Taverney, however slight may have been its hospitality.”

“Master Philip,” returned the other in a high hoarse voice, for Philip’s kindness and another unspoken feeling had mollified him: “I do like you; and that is why I tell you that your sister is very ill.”

“Very ill?” ejaculated the gentleman: “why did you not tell me so at the start?” “What is it?” he asked, walking so quickly.

“Nobody knows. She fainted three times in the grounds yesterday and the Dauphiness’s doctor has been to see her, as well as my lord the baron.”

Philip was not listening any farther for his presentiments were realized and his fortitude came to him in face of danger. He left his horse in Gilbert’s charge, and ran to the chapel.

Gilbert put the horse up in the stable and ran into the woods like one of those wild or obscene birds which cannot bear the eye of man.

On entering the ante-chamber Philip missed the flowers of which his sister used to be fond but which irritated her since her indisposition.

As he entered she was musing on a little sofa before mentioned. Her lovely brow surcharged with clouds drooped lowly, and her fine eyes vacillated in their orbits. Her hands were hanging and though the position ought to have filled them with blood they were white as a waxen statue’s.

Philip caught the strange expression and, alarmed as he was, he thought that his sister’s ailment had mental affliction in it.

The sight caused so much trembling in his heart that he could not restrain a start in flight.

Andrea lifted her eyes and rose like a galvanised corpse, with a loud scream; breathlessly she clung to her brother’s neck.

“Yes, Philip, you!” she panted, and force quitted her before she could speak more.

“Yes, I who return to find you ill,” he said, embracing and sustaining her for he felt her yield. “Poor sister, what has happened you?”

Andrea laughed with a nervous tone which hurt him instead of encouraging as she intended.

“Nothing: the doctor whom the Dauphiness kindly sent me, says it is nothing he can remedy. I am quite well save for some fainting fits which came over me.”

“But you are so pale?”

“Did I ever have much color?”

“No, but you were alive at that time, while now – ”

“It is nothing: the pleasant shock of seeing you again – ”

“Dear Andrea!”

But as he pressed her to his heart, her strength fled once more and she fell on the sofa, whiter than the muslin curtains on which her face was outlined.

She gradually recovered and looked handsomer than ever.

“Your emotion at my return is very sweet and flattering, but I should like to know about your illness – to what you attribute it?”

“I do not know, dear: the spring, the coming of the flowers: you know I have always been nervous. Yesterday the perfume of the Persian lilacs nearly suffocated me – I believe it was then I was taken bad. Strange to say, I who used to be so fond of the flowers hold them in execration now. For over two weeks not so much as a daffodil has entered my rooms. But let us leave them. It is the headache I have, which caused a swoon and made Mdlle. de Taverney a happy girl, because it has drawn the notice of the Dauphiness upon her. She has come here to see me. Oh, Philip, what a delicate friend and charming patroness she is! But since her doctor says there is nothing to be alarmed at, tell me why you have been alarmed?”

“It was that little numbskull Gilbert, of course!”

“Gilbert,” repeated the lady testily. “Did you believe that little idiot who is only able in doing or saying ill? But how is it I see you without any notice?”

“Answer me why you ceased to write?”

“Only for a few days.”

“For a full fortnight, you negligent girl! Ah, I was utterly forgotten there even by my sister. They were in a dreadful hurry to pack me off, yet when I got there I never heard a word about the fabulous regiment of which I was to take command as promised by the King per the Duke of Richelieu to our father himself.”

“Oh, do not be astonished at that,” said the girl, “the duke and father are quite upset about it. They are like two bodies with one soul; but father sometimes cries out against him, saying he is betrayed. Who betrays him? I do not know and between us I little want to know. Father lives like a soul in purgatory, fretting about something which never comes.”

“But the King, he is not well disposed to us?”

“Speak low. The King,” replied Andrea, looking timidly round. “I am afraid the King is very fickle. The interest which he professed for our house, for each of us, cooled off, without my being able to understand it. He does not look at me and yesterday he turned back on me – which was when I fainted in the garden.”

“Then little Gilbert was right.”

“To tell everybody that I fainted? what does it matter to the miserable little rogue? I know, my dear Philip,” added Andrea laughing, “that it is not the proper thing to faint in a royal residence but it is not one of those things that one does for the fun of it.”

“Poor dear, I can well believe that it is not your fault: but go on.”

“That is all; and Master Gilbert might have withheld his remarks about it.”

“There you are abusing the poor boy again.”

“And you taking his defense.”

“For mercy’s sake, do not be so rude to him, so hard, for I have heard how you treat him. But, goodness, what is the matter now?”

This time she fainted so that it took a long time for her senses to return.

“Undoubtedly you suffer,” said Philip, “so as to alarm persons more bold than I am when you are concerned. Say what you like, this is a case that wants attending to. I will see your doctor myself,” he concluded tranquilly.

CHAPTER XXXV
THE MISUNDERSTANDING

THE day was closing and Dr. Louis, who was trying to read a medical tract as he came along in the twilight to the chapel, was vexed at the interposition of an opaque body to intercept the scanty light.

Raising his head and seeing a man before him, he asked:

“What do you want?”

“Excuse me but is not this Dr. Louis?” asked Philip de Taverney.

“Yes, sir,” replied the doctor shutting his book.

“I should like a word with you – ”

“Pardon me, but I am in attendance on her Royal Highness the Dauphiness and – ”

“But the lady I wish to ask you about is in her household – ”

“Do you mean Mdlle. de Taverney?”

“Precisely.”

“Aha,” said the doctor quickly, examining the young captain.

“I am afraid she is very bad, for she went off into a swoon more than once while I was speaking to her this afternoon.”

“Oh, you seem to take this to heart?”

“I love Mdlle. de Taverney more than my life.”

He spoke the words with such exalted brotherly affection that the doctor was deceived.

“Oh, so it is you who is the lover?” he exclaimed.

Philip fell two steps back, carrying his hand to his brow and becoming pale as death.

“Mind, sir, you insult my sister!”

“Oh, your sister? excuse me, captain, but your air of mystery, the hour of your addressing me and the place, all led me into error which I deplore.”

“Stay, sir; you think that Mdlle. de Taverney has a lover – ”

“Captain Taverney, I have not said a word of the sort to the Dauphiness, to your father, or to you – press me no more.”

“On the contrary, we must speak of this. And yet it is impossible. I should have to give up all the religion of my life: it is accusing an angel – it is defying heaven! Doctor, let me require you to approve this. Science may err.”

“Seldom.”

“But, doctor, promise me that you will come and see her when you return from the Dauphiness? it is the boon the victim would not be refused by the executioner. You will see her again?”

“It is useless; but I should like to be mistaken. Captain, I will come and see your sister to-night.”

Dr. Louis was one of those grave and honorable men for whom science is a holy thing and who study religiously. In a materialistic age he studied mental maladies: under the husk of the practitioner he had a heart and that was why he told Philip that he hoped he had erred.

That was why, too, he came to make a more full examination and was true to his appointment.

Whether by accident or from emotion due to the doctor’s call, Andrea was seized with one of those fainting fits which had so alarmed her brother, and she was staggering, with her handkerchief carried to her mouth in pain.

The doctor assisted her to the sofa and sat down on it beside her. She was astonished at the second visit of one who had declared the case insignificant that same morning and still more that he should take her hand, not like a doctor to feel her pulse, but like a friend. She was almost going to snatch it away.

“Do you desire to see me, or is it merely the desire of your brother?” he asked.

“My brother did announce his intention of seeing you; but after your having said the matter was of no moment I should not have disturbed you myself.”

“Your brother seems to be excitable, jealous of his honor, and intractable on some points. I suppose this is why you have not unbosomed yourself to him?”

Andrea looked at him with supreme haughtiness.

“Allow me to finish. It is natural that seeing the pain of the young gentleman and foreseeing his anger, you should obstinately keep secret before him: but towards me, the physician of the soul as well as of the body, one who sees and knows, you will be spared half the painful road of revelation and I have the right to expect you will be more frank.”

“Doctor,” replied Andrea, “if I did not see my brother darkened with true grief and yourself with a reputation of gravity I might believe you were in a plot to play some comedy with me and to frighten me into taking some disagreeable medicine.”

“I entreat you, young lady,” said the doctor frowning, “to stop in this course of dissimulation.”

“Dissimulation?”

“Would you rather I said hypocrisy?”

“Sir, you offend me.”

“You mean that I read you clearly. Will you spare me the pain of making you blush?”

“I do not understand you,” said the girl, three times, looking at the doctor with eyes shining with interrogation and defiance, and almost with menace.

“But I understand you. You doubt science, and you hope to hide your condition from the world. But, undeceive yourself – with one word I pull down your pride: you are enceinte!”

Andrea uttered a frightful shriek and fell back on the sofa.

This cry was followed by the crash of the door flying open and Philip bounded into the room, drawing his sword and crying:

“You lie!”

Without letting go the pulse of the fainted woman, the doctor turned round to the captain.

“I have said what it was my duty to say,” he replied: “and it is not your sword, in or out of the sheath, which will belie me. I deeply sorrow for you, young gentleman, for you have inspired as much sympathy as this girl has aversion by her perseverance in falsehood.”

Andrea made not a movement but Philip started.

“I am father of a family,” went on the doctor, “and I understand what you must suffer. I promise you my services as I do my discretion. My word is sacred, and everybody will tell you that I hold it dearer than my life.”

“This is impossible!”

“It is true. Adieu, Captain.”

When he was gone, Philip shut all the doors and windows, and coming back to his sister who watched with stupor these ominous preparations, he said, folding his arms:

“You have cowardly and stupidly deceived me. Cowardly, because I loved you above all else, and esteemed you, and my trust ought to have induced your own though you had no affection. Stupidly, because a third person holds the infamous secret which defames us; because spite of your cunning, it must have appeared to all eyes; lastly, because if you had confessed the state to me, I might have saved you from my affection for you. Your honor, so long as you were not wedded, belongs to all of us – that is, you have shamed us all.

“Now, I am no longer your brother since you have blotted out the title: only a man interested in extorting from you by all possible means the whole secret in order that I may obtain some reparation. I come to you full of anger and resolution, and I say that you shall be punished as cowards deserve for having been such a coward as to shelter yourself behind a lie. Confess your crime, or – ”

“Threats, to me?” cried the proud Andrea, “to a woman?” And she rose pale and menacing likewise.

“Not to a woman but to a faithless, dishonored creature.”

“Threats,” continued Andrea, more and more exasperated, “to one who knows nothing, can understand nothing of this except that you are looked upon by me as sanguinary madmen leagued to kill me with grief if not with shame.”

“Aye, you shall be killed if you do not confess,” said Philip. “Die on the instant, for heaven hath doomed you and I strike at its bidding.”

The convulsively young man convulsively picked up his sword, and applied the point like lightning to his sister’s breast.

“Yes, kill me!” she screamed, without shrinking at the smart of the wound.

She was even springing forward, full of sorrow and dementia, and her leap was so quick that the sword would have run through her bosom but for the sudden terror of Philip and the sight of a few drops of red on her muslin at the neck making him draw back.

At the end of his strength and his anger, he dropped the blade and fell on his knees at her feet. He wound his arms round her.

“No, Andrea,” he cried, “it is I who shall die. You love me no more and I care for nothing in the world. Oh, you love another to such a degree that you prefer death to a confession poured out on my bosom. Oh, Andrea, it is time that I was dead.”

She seized him as he would have dashed away, and wildly embraced him and covered him with tears and kisses.

“No, Philip, you are right. I ought to die since I am called guilty. But you are so good, pure and noble, that nobody will ever defame you and you should live to sorrow for me, not curse me.”

“Well, sister,” replied the young man, “in heaven’s name, for the sake of our old time’s love, fear nothing for yourself or him you love. I require no more of you, not even his name. Enough that the man pleased you, and so he is dear to me.

“Let us quit France. I hear that the King gave you some jewels – let us sell them and get away together. We will send half to our father and hide with the other. I will be all to you and you all to me. I love no one, so that I can be devoted to you. Andrea, you see what I do for you; you see you may rely on my love. Come, do you still refuse me your trust? will you not call me your brother?”

In silence, Andrea had listened to all the desperate young man had said: only the throbbing of her heart indicated life; only her looks showed reason.

“Philip,” she said after a long pause, “you have thought that I loved you no longer, poor brother! and loved another man? now I forgive you all but the belief that I am impious enough to take a false oath. Well, I swear by high heaven which hears me, by our mother’s soul – it seems that she has not long enough defended me, alas! that a thought of love has never distracted my reason. Now, God hath my soul in His holy keeping, and my body is at your disposal.”

“Then there is witchcraft here,” cried Philip; “I have heard of philters and potions. Someone has laid a hellish snare for you. Awake, none could have won this prize – sleeping, they have despoiled you. But we are together now and you are strong with me. You confide your honor in me and I shall revenge you.”

“Yes, revenge, for it would be for a crime!” said the girl, with a sombre glow in her eyes.

“Well let us search out the criminal together,” continued the Knight of Redcastle. “Have you noticed any one spying you and following you about – have you had letters – has a man said he loved you or led you to suppose so – for women have a remarkable instinct in such matters?”

“No one, nothing.”

“Have you never walked out alone?”

“I always had Nicole with me.”

“Nicole? a girl of dubious morals. Have I known all about her escapade?”

“Only that she is supposed to have run away with her sweetheart.”

“How did you part?”

“Naturally enough; she attended to her duties up to nine o’clock when she arranged my things, set out my drink for the night and went away.”

“Your drink? may she not have mixed something with it?”

“No; for I remember that I felt that strange thrill as I was putting the glass to my lips.”