ed to his
mind. In his grief, he had not yet given it a thought. He told himself
that in the midst of all his preparations for his departure, the duke
might quite possibly overlook him; and, leaving Jenkins to complete the
drowning of Don Juan's casket by himself, he returned precipitately
in the direction of the bed-chamber. Just as he was on the point of
entering, the sound of a discussion held him back behind the lowered
door-curtain. It was Louis's voice, tearful like that of a beggar in
a church-porch, trying to move the duke to pity for his distress, and
asking permission to take certain bundles of bank-notes that lay in a
drawer. Oh, how hoarse, utterly wearied, hardly intelligible the answer,
in which there could be detected the effort of the sick man to turn over
in his bed, to bring back his vision from a far-off distance already
half in sight:

"Yes, yes; take them. But for God's sake, let me sleep--let me sleep!"

Drawers opened, closed again, a short and panting breath. Monpavon heard
no more of what was going on, and retraced his steps without entering.
The ferocious rapacity of his servant had set his pride upon its guard.
Anything rather than degradation to such a point as that.

The sleep which Mora craved for so insistently--the lethargy, to be more
accurate--lasted a whole night, and through the next morning also, with
uncertain wakings disturbed by terrible sufferings relieved each time by
soporifics. No further attempt was made to nurse him to recovery; they
tried only to soothe his last moments, to help him to slip painlessly
over that terrible last step. His eyes had opened again during this
time, but were already dimmed, fixed in the void on floating shadows,
vague forms like those a diver sees quivering in the uncertain light
under water.

In the afternoon of the Thursday, towards three o'clock, he regained
complete consciousness, and recognising Monpavon, Cardailhac, and two
or three other intimate friends, he smiled to them, and betrayed in a
sentence his only anxiety:

"What do they say about it in Paris?"

They said many things about it, different and contradictory; but very
certainly he was the only subject of conversation, and the news spread
through the town since the morning, that Mora was at his last breath,
agitated the streets, the drawing-rooms, the cafes, the workshops,
revived the question of the political situation in newspaper offices and
clubs, even in porters' lodges and