, as she
recognized Morok, "who separated me from Jacques!"

She paused; for the dim eye of the victim, as it rested upon her, grew
suddenly bright.

"Cephyse!" murmured Jacques; "is it you?"

"Yes, it is I," answered she, in a voice of deep emotion; "who have
come--I will tell you--"

She was unable to continue, and, as she clasped her hands together,
her pale, agitated, tearful countenance expressed her astonishment and
despair at the mortal change which had taken place in the features
of Jacques. He understood the cause of her surprise, and as he
contemplated, in his turn, the suffering and emaciated countenance of
Cephyse, he said to her, "Poor girl! you also have had to bear much
grief, much misery--I should hardly have known you."

"Yes," replied Cephyse, "much grief--much misery--and worse than
misery," she added, trembling, whilst a deep blush overspread her pale
features.

"Worse than misery?" said Jacques, astonished.

"But it is you who have suffered," hastily resumed Cephyse, without
answering her lover.

"Just now, I was going to make an end of it--your voice has recalled me
for an instant--but I feel something here," and he laid his hand upon
his breast, "which never gives quarter. It is all the same now--I have
seen you--I shall die happy."

"You shall not die, Jacques; I am here--"

"Listen to one, my girl. If I had a bushel of live coal in my stomach,
it could hardly burn me more. For more than a month, I have been
consuming my body by a slow fire. This gentleman," he added, glancing at
Morok, "this dear friend, always undertook to feed the flame. I do not
regret life; I have lost the habit of work, and taken to drink and riot;
I should have finished by becoming a thorough blackguard: I preferred
that my friend here should amuse himself with lighting a furnace in my
inside. Since what I drank just now, I am certain that it fumes like
yonder punch."

"You are both foolish and ungrateful," said Morok, shrugging his
shoulders; "you held out your glass, and I filled it--and, faith, we
shall drink long and often together yet."

For some moments, Cephyse had not withdrawn her eyes from Morok. "I tell
you, that you have long blown the fire, in which I have burnt my skin,"
resumed Jacques, addressing Morok in a feeble voice, "so that they may
not think I die of cholera. It would look as if I had been frightened
by the part I played. I do not therefore reproach you, my affectionate
friend," adde