at the club to prevent your being expelled in
disgrace.--I covered you with jewels, you hussy, so letting people think
you were my mistress, because that is good form in our circle, and never
asked you for anything in return.--And you, brazen-faced journalist,
with no other brains than the dregs of your inkstand, and with as many
leprous spots on your conscience as your queen has on her skin, you
consider that I didn't pay you what you were worth, and that's the
secret of your insults.--Yes, yes, look at me, _canaille_! I am proud. I
am better than you."

All that he said thus to himself, in a frenzy of wrath, visible in the
trembling of his thick, pallid lips, the unhappy man, upon whom madness
was swooping down, was, perhaps, on the point of shouting aloud in the
silence, of pouring out a flood of maledictions upon that insulting mob,
and, who can say? of leaping down into the midst of them and killing
some one, ah! God's blood! of killing some one, when he felt a light
touch on his shoulder; and he saw a blond head, a frank, grave face, and
two outstretched hands which he grasped convulsively, like a drowning
man.

"Ah! my dear--my dear--" stammered the poor man. But he had no strength
to say more. That grateful emotion coming upon him in the midst of his
frenzy, melted it into a sob of tears, of blood, of choking speech. His
face became purple. He motioned: "Take me away." And, leaning on Paul de
Gery's arm, he stumbled through the door of his box and fell to the
floor in the lobby.

"Bravo! bravo!" shouted the audience at the conclusion of the actor's
tirade; and there was a noise as of a hail-storm, an enthusiastic
stamping,--while the great inert body, borne by scene-shifters, passed
through the brilliantly-lighted wings, obstructed by men and women
crowding around the entrances to the stage, excited by the atmosphere of
success, and hardly noticing the passage of that lifeless victim carried
in men's arms like the victim of a street affray. They laid him on a
couch in the property room, Paul de Gery by his side with a physician
and two attendants who were eager to help. Cardailhac, who was very busy
with the performance, had promised to come and see how he was getting
on, "in a moment, after the fifth act."

Bloodletting upon bloodletting, cupping, plasters, nothing produced even
a twitching of the skin in the sick man, who was insensible to all the
methods of resuscitation usually resorted to in cases of a