a shroud. The consultants spoke in low tones, cast furtive
glances as each other, or exchanged some barbarous word, remaining
impassive, without even a frown. But this mute and reticent expression
of the doctor and magistrate, this solemnity with which science and
justice hedge themselves about to hide their frailty or ignorance, had
no power to move the duke.

Sitting up in bed, he continued to talk quietly, with the upward glance
of the eye in which it seems as if thought rises before it finally takes
wing, and Monpavon coldly followed his cue, hardening himself against
his own emotion, taking from his friend a last lesson in "form"; while
Louis, in the background, stood leaning against the door leading to the
duchess's apartment, the spectre of a silent domestic in whom detached
indifference is a duty.

The most agitated, nervous man present was Jenkins. Full of obsequious
attentions for his "illustrious colleagues," as he called them, with his
lips pursed up, he hung round their consultation and attempted to
take part in it; but the colleagues kept him at a distance and hardly
answered him, as Fagon--the Fagon of Louis XIV--might have addressed
some empiric summoned to the royal bedside. Old Bouchereau especially
had black looks for the inventor of the Jenkins pearls. Finally, when
they had thoroughly examined and questioned their patient, they retired
to deliberate among themselves in a little room with lacquered ceilings
and walls, filled by an assortment of _bric-a-brac_ the triviality of
which contrasted strangely with the importance of the discussion.

Solemn moment! Anguish of the accused awaiting the decision of his
judges--life, death, reprieve, or pardon!

With his long, white hand Mora continued to stroke his mustache with a
favourite gesture, to talk with Monpavon of the club, of the foyer
of the _Varietes_, asking news of the Chamber, how matters stood with
regard to the Nabob's election--all this coldly, without the least
affectation. Then, tired, no doubt, or fearing lest his glance,
constantly drawn to that curtain opposite him, from behind which the
sentence was to come presently, should betray the emotion which he must
have felt in the depths of his soul, he laid his head on the pillow,
closed his eyes, and did not open them again until the return of the
doctors. Still the same cold and sinister faces, veritable physiognomies
of judges having on their lips the terrible decree of human fate, the