e could scarcely speak. His eyes stuck
out of his head, and he stuttered like this--'What's-the-matter?
What's the-matter?' Madame, who couldn't speak either, held out
mademoiselle's letter, which she had in her hand."

The three auditors were on coals of fire; the rogue perceived it,
and spoke more and more slowly.

"Then monsieur took the letter, went to the window, and at a glance
read it through. He cried out hoarsely, thus: 'Oh!' then he went
to beating the air with his hands, like a swimming dog; then he
walked up and down and fell, pouf! like a bag, his face on the floor.
That was all."

"Is he dead?" cried all three in the same breath.

"Oh, no; you shall see," responded Baptiste, with a placid smile.

M. Lecoq was a patient man, but not so patient as you might think.
Irritated by the manner of Baptiste's recital, he put down his
bundle, seized the man's arm with his right hand, while with the
left he whisked a light flexible cane, and said:

"Look here, fellow, I want you to hurry up, you know."

That was all he said; the servant was terribly afraid of this little
blond man, with a strange voice, and a fist harder than a vice. He
went on very rapidly this time, his eye fixed on M. Lecoq's rattan.

"Monsieur had an attack of vertigo. All the house was in confusion;
everybody except I, lost their heads; it occurred to me to go for
a doctor, and I started off for one--for Doctor Gendron, whom I
knew to be at the chateau, or the doctor near by, or the apothecary
--it mattered not who. By good luck, at the street corner, I came
upon Robelot, the bone-setter--'Come, follow me,' said I. He did
so; sent away those who were tending monsieur, and bled him in both
arms. Shortly after, he breathed, then he opened his eyes, and
then he spoke. Now he is quite restored, and is lying on one of
the drawing-room lounges, crying with all his might. He told me
he wanted to see Monsieur Plantat, and I--"

"And--Mademoiselle Laurence?" asked M. Plantat, with a trembling
voice. Baptiste assumed a tragic pose.

"Ah, gentlemen," said he, "don't ask me about her--'tis
heartrending!"

The doctor and M. Plantat heard no more, but hurried in; M. Lecoq
followed, having confided his night-gown to Baptiste, with, "Carry
that to M. Plantat's--quick!"

Misfortune, when it enters a house, seems to leave its fatal imprint
on the very threshold. Perhaps it is not really so, but it is the
feeling which those who are summoned to it e