_A time will come when death
will appear more beautiful and friendly and desirable than life!_"

Chapter IV.

The Man of the Crowd.

In a few days Dr Lefevre found a quiet afternoon, and went and told his
mother the story of the Spanish marquis which he had got from Dr Rippon.
She hailed the story with delight. Courtney was a fascinating figure to
her before: it needed but that to clothe him with a complete romantic
heroism; for, of course, she did not doubt that he was the son of the
Spanish grandee. She wished to put it to him at once whether he was not,
but she was dissuaded by her son from mentioning the matter yet to
either Julius or her daughter.

"If he wishes," said Lefevre, "to keep it secret for some reason, it
would be an impertinence to speak about it. We shall, however, have a
perfect right to ask him about himself if his attentions to Nora go on."

Soon afterwards (it was really a fortnight; but in a busy life day melts
into day with amazing rapidity), Lefevre was surprised at dinner, and
somewhat irritated, by a letter from his mother. She wrote that they had
seen nothing of Julius Courtney for three or four days,--which was
singular, since for the past three or four weeks he had been a daily
visitor; latterly he had begun to look fagged and ill, and it was
possible he was confined to his room,--though, after all, that was
scarcely likely, for he had not answered a note of inquiry which she had
sent. She begged her son to call at his chambers, the more so as Nora
was pining in Julius's absence to a degree which made her mother very
anxious.

With professional suspicion Lefevre told himself that if Julius, with
his magnificent health, was fallen ill, it must be for some outrageous
reason. But even if he was ill, he need not be unmannerly: he might have
let his friends who had been in the habit of seeing him daily know what
had come to him. Was it possible, the doctor thought, that he was
repenting of having given Nora and her mother so much cause to take his
assiduous attentions seriously? He resolved to see Julius at once, if he
were at his chambers.

He left his wine unfinished (to the delight of his grave and silent man
in black), hastily took his hat from its peg in the hall, and passed out
into the street, while his man held the door open. In two minutes he had
passed the northern gateway of the Albany, which, as most people know,
is just at the southern end of Savile Row. Courtney's d