he
back of all medicine, as in every other science. So endeavor to live
wholesomely; try a trip to Savoy; the best course is, and always will
be, to trust to Nature."

It was a month later, on a fine summer-like evening, that several
people, who were taking the waters at Aix, returned from the promenade
and met together in the salons of the Club. Raphael remained alone by a
window for a long time. His back was turned upon the gathering, and he
himself was deep in those involuntary musings in which thoughts arise in
succession and fade away, shaping themselves indistinctly, passing over
us like thin, almost colorless clouds. Melancholy is sweet to us then,
and delight is shadowy, for the soul is half asleep. Valentin gave
himself up to this life of sensations; he was steeping himself in the
warm, soft twilight, enjoying the pure air with the scent of the
hills in it, happy in that he felt no pain, and had tranquilized his
threatening Magic Skin at last. It grew cooler as the red glow of the
sunset faded on the mountain peaks; he shut the window and left his
place.

"Will you be so kind as not to close the windows, sir?" said an old
lady; "we are being stifled----"

The peculiarly sharp and jarring tones in which the phrase was uttered
grated on Raphael's ears; it fell on them like an indiscreet remark let
slip by some man in whose friendship we would fain believe, a word which
reveals unsuspected depths of selfishness and destroys some pleasing
sentimental illusion of ours. The Marquis glanced, with the cool
inscrutable expression of a diplomatist, at the old lady, called a
servant, and, when he came, curtly bade him:

"Open that window."

Great surprise was clearly expressed on all faces at the words. The
whole roomful began to whisper to each other, and turned their eyes upon
the invalid, as though he had given some serious offence. Raphael, who
had never quite managed to rid himself of the bashfulness of his early
youth, felt a momentary confusion; then he shook off his torpor, exerted
his faculties, and asked himself the meaning of this strange scene.

A sudden and rapid impulse quickened his brain; the past weeks appeared
before him in a clear and definite vision; the reasons for the feelings
he inspired in others stood out for him in relief, like the veins of
some corpse which a naturalist, by some cunningly contrived injection,
has colored so as to show their least ramifications.

He discerned himself in