Honore led the doctor through the cool, high, tessellated
carriage-hall, on one side of which were the drawing-rooms, closed and
darkened. They turned at the bottom, ascended a broad, iron-railed
staircase to the floor above, and halted before the open half of a
glazed double door with a clumsy iron latch. It was the entrance to two
spacious chambers, which were thrown into one by folded doors.

The doctor made a low, indrawn whistle and raised his eyebrows--the
rooms were so sumptuously furnished; immovable largeness and heaviness,
lofty sobriety, abundance of finely wrought brass mounting, motionless
richness of upholstery, much silent twinkle of pendulous crystal, a soft
semi-obscurity--such were the characteristics. The long windows of the
farther apartment could be seen to open over the street, and the air
from behind, coming in over a green mass of fig-trees that stood in the
paved court below, moved through the rooms, making them cool and
cavernous.

"You don't call this a hiding place, do you--in his own bedchamber?" the
doctor whispered.

"It is necessary, now, only to keep out of sight," softly answered
Honore. "Agricole and some others ransacked this house one night last
March--the day I announced the new firm; but of course, then, he was
not here."

They entered, and the figure of Honore Grandissime, f.m.c., came into
view in the centre of the farther room, reclining in an attitude of
extreme languor on a low couch, whither he had come from the high bed
near by, as the impression of his form among its pillows showed. He
turned upon the two visitors his slow, melancholy eyes, and, without an
attempt to rise or speak, indicated, by a feeble motion of the hand, an
invitation to be seated.

"Good morning," said Doctor Keene, selecting a light chair and drawing
it close to the side of the couch.

The patient before him was emaciated. The limp and bloodless hand, which
had not responded to the doctor's friendly pressure but sank idly back
upon the edge of the couch, was cool and moist, and its nails
slightly blue.

"Lie still," said the doctor, reassuringly, as the rentier began to lift
the one knee and slippered foot which was drawn up on the couch and the
hand which hung out of sight across a large, linen-covered cushion.

By pleasant talk that seemed all chat, the physician soon acquainted
himself with the case before him. It was a very plain one. By and by he
rubbed his face and red curls and suddenl