nd himself face to face with the hotel valet,
an amiable young Frenchman by the name of Malette.

"Monsieur," said the man, "will you please come at once? There has been
an accident--his excellency is very ill."

"An accident to the Count? Is it serious, Malette?"

"It is very serious, monsieur. They say that he will not live. The
doctors are with him--I thought that you would wish to know
immediately."

Alban turned without a word and began to put on his clothes. His hands
were quite cold and he trembled as though stricken by an ague. When he
had found a dressing-gown, he huddled it on anyhow and followed Malette
down the corridor.

"When did this happen, Malette?"

"I do not know, monsieur. One of the servants chanced to pass his
excellency's door and saw something which frightened him. He called the
concierge and they waked the Herr Director. Afterwards they sent for the
police."

"Do they think that the Count was assassinated, then?"

"Ah, that is to find out. The officers will help us to say. Will you go
in at once, monsieur, or shall I tell the Herr Director?"

Alban said that he would go at once. The young fear to look upon the
face of death and he was no braver than others of his age. A terrible
sense of dread overtook him while he stood before the door and heard the
hushed whispers of those about it. Here a giant police officer had
already taken up his post as sentinel and he cast a searching glance
upon all who approached. There were two or three privileged servants
standing apart and discussing the affair; but a stain upon a crimson
carpet was more eloquent of the truth than any word. Alban came near to
swooning as he stepped over it and entered the room without word or
knock.

They had laid the Count upon the bed and dragged it to the window to
husband the light. Two doctors, hastily summoned from a neighboring
hospital, worked like heroes in their shirt sleeves--a nurse in a gray
dress stood behind them holding sponge and bandages. At the first
glance, the untrained onlooker would have said that Sergius Zamoyski was
certainly dead. The intense pallor of his face, the set eyes, the
stiffened limbs, spoke of the rigor mortis and the finality of tragedy.
None the less, the surgeons went to work as though all might yet be
saved. Uttering their orders in the calm and measured tones of those
whom no scene of death could unnerve, they were unconscious of all else
but the task before them and its immed