grief, to
spread it abroad. He played the role of the unhappy father from one end
of the boulevard to the other. He was always to be found in the
neighborhood of the theatres or at the actors' restaurant, with red eyes
and pale cheeks. He loved to invite the question, "Well, my poor old
fellow, how are things going at home?" Thereupon he would shake his head
with a nervous gesture; his grimace held tears in check, his mouth
imprecations, and he would stab heaven with a silent glance, overflowing
with wrath, as when he played the 'Medecin des Enfants;' all of which did
not prevent him, however, from bestowing the most delicate and thoughtful
attentions upon his daughter.

He also maintained an unalterable confidence in himself, no matter what
happened. And yet his eyes came very near being opened to the truth at
last. A hot little hand laid upon that pompous, illusion-ridden head came
very near expelling the bee that had been buzzing there so long. This is
how it came to pass.

One night Desiree awoke with a start, in a very strange state. It should
be said that the doctor, when he came to see her on the preceding
evening, had been greatly surprised to find her suddenly brighter and
calmer, and entirely free from fever. Without attempting to explain this
unhoped-for resurrection, he had gone away, saying, "Let us wait and
see"; he relied upon the power of youth to throw off disease, upon the
resistless force of the life-giving sap, which often engrafts a new life
upon the very symptoms of death. If he had looked under Desiree's pillow,
he would have found there a letter postmarked Cairo, wherein lay the
secret of that happy change. Four pages signed by Frantz, his whole
conduct confessed and explained to his dear little Zizi.

It was the very letter of which the sick girl had dreamed. If she had
dictated it herself, all the phrases likely to touch her heart, all the
delicately worded excuses likely to pour balm into her wounds, would have
been less satisfactorily expressed. Frantz repented, asked forgiveness,
and without making any promises, above all without asking anything from
her, described to his faithful friend his struggles, his remorse, his
sufferings.

What a misfortune that that letter had not arrived a few days earlier.
Now, all those kind words were to Desiree like the dainty dishes that are
brought too late to a man dying of hunger.

Suddenly she awoke, and, as we said a moment since, in an extraordinar