to see the emerald necklace in the window. When they brought it,
with some others, a kind of dizziness came over me. It veiled my eyes
with dark, terrible shadows. I thrust out my hand, swiftly took one of
the necklaces--I didn't know which, because they all looked green to
me--and ran. But the proprietor must have been spying every movement of
mine. He pulled a revolver, and fired. His aim was good. At that moment
I felt nothing, and kept on running. Voices shouted after me: 'Stop
thief! Stop thief!' I seemed to see revengeful hands, eager to catch me,
opening and shutting like claws, behind me.

"When I came to my senses, I was in a deserted alleyway. My pursuers
hadn't been able to catch me. Then I noticed my clothes were all soaked
with blood, and my knees were shaking. What should I do? Night sheltered
me. Slowly I came back here. To-day, I sent for you."

The ring-laden fingers of the girl twisted together with a twofold
motion of interest and horror.

"And you haven't had any treatment?" asked she. "You haven't called a
doctor?"

"No. I didn't want to do that. Because if anybody had seen me, they'd
have suspected. And I preferred to die, Alicia, rather than to have them
take away the necklace I stole for you."

Then, feeling that his last strength was running out, he added with a
little gesture:

"There it is, on the bureau. Just raise up those papers--"

The scene was poignant, melodramatic with sad romanticism. At last the
Magdalene's eyes grew wet.

"Boy, boy!" she sobbed. "What have you done?"

Darles only repeated:

"You'll find it there, on the bureau."

She did as the student bade her in his eagerness not to die before
seeing his gift in the well-beloved's hands of snow and pearl. Under
some papers her fingers came upon a black pearl necklace.

"Oh, how beautiful!" she cried, enchanted.

Without opening his eyes, and like a man talking in his sleep, Darles
answered:

"It's not the one you wanted, I know. I found that out, afterward.
But--at that moment, they all looked green to me."

Thus befell one more event, one more caprice of the bitter and eternal
irony of things. To give one's life for a necklace, an emerald necklace,
and then to get the wrong one! The student murmured:

"Good-by!"

A long shudder trembled through his body. Suddenly the shadow of death
gave his face a stern, manly severity. His lips twisted. Candelas,
kneeling beside the bed, wept and prayed. Alicia, more viol