t as dead a faint as I ever saw; I was nearly an hour in
bringing her out of it. Of course it was the heat of the room, her
exertions the preceding week, and I prescribed for her. Queer, wasn't
it? Now, if I were a writer, and had your faculty, I'd make something
out of that."

"But how is his general health?"

"Oh, about the same. He can't evade what will come, you know, at any
moment. He was up here the other day. Why, the pulsation was as
plain--why, the entire arch of the aorta-- What! you get out here?
Good-by."

Of course no moralist, no man writing for a sensitive and strictly
virtuous public, could further interest himself in this man. So I
dismissed him at once from my mind, and returned to the literary
contemplation of virtue that was clearly and positively defined, and of
Sin, that invariably commenced with a capital letter. That this man,
in his awful condition, hovering on the verge of eternity, should allow
himself to be attracted by--but it was horrible to contemplate.

Nevertheless, a month afterwards, I was returning from a festivity with
my intimate friend Smith, my distinguished friend Jobling, my most
respectable friend Robinson, and my wittiest friend Jones. It was a
clear, star-lit morning, and we seemed to hold the broad, beautiful
avenue to ourselves; and I fear we acted as if it were so. As we
hilariously passed the corner of Eighteenth Street, a coupe rolled by,
and I suddenly heard my name called from its gloomy depths.

"I beg your pardon," said the Doctor, as his driver drew up by the
sidewalk, "but I've some news for you. I've just been to see our poor
friend ----. Of course I was too late. He was gone in a flash."

"What! dead?"

"As Pharaoh! In an instant, just as I said. You see, the rupture took
place in the descending arch of--"

"But, Doctor!"

"It's a queer story. Am I keeping you from your friends? No? Well,
you see she--that woman I spoke of--had written a note to him based on
what I had told her. He got it, and dropped in his dressing-room, dead
as a herring."

"How could she have been so cruel, knowing his condition? She might,
with woman's tact, have rejected him less abruptly."

"Yes; but you're all wrong. By Jove! she ACCEPTED him! was willing to
marry him!"

"What?"

"Yes. Don't you see? It was joy that killed him. Gad, we never
thought of THAT! Queer, ain't it? See here, don't you think you might
make a story out of it?"

"But, D