nd he had stretched out fell to his side; a
second more, and he reeled and fell from his chair as if he had had a
stroke of apoplexy.

Gerfaut, whose eyes had not left him, watched these different symptoms
with unutterable anxiety; but in spite of his fright, he drew a sigh of
relief when he saw Marillac mute and speechless.

"It is singular," observed the notary, as he aided in removing his
neighbor from the table, "that glass of water had more effect upon him
than four or five bottles of wine."

"Georges," said Gerfaut to one of the servants, in an agitated voice,
"open his bed and help me carry him to it; Monsieur de Bergenheim, I
suppose there is a chemist near here, if I should need any medicine."

The greater part of the guests arose at this unexpected incident, and
some of them hastened to Marillac's side, as he remained motionless in
his chair. The repeated bathing of his temples with cold water and the
holding of salts to his nose were not able to bring him to consciousness.

Instead of going to his aid with the others, Bergenheim profited by the
general confusion to lean over the table. He plunged his finger into the
artist's glass, in which a part of the water remained, and then touched
his tongue. Only the notary noticed this movement. Thinking this rather
strange, he seized the glass in his turn and swallowed the few drops that
it contained.

"Heavens!" he exclaimed, in a low voice, to Bergenheim, "I am not
surprised that the bumper asphyxiated him on the spot. Do you know,
Baron, if this Monsieur de Gerfaut had taken anything but water during
the evening, I should say that he was the drunker of the two; or that, if
they were not such good friends, he wished to poison him in order to stop
his talk. Did you notice that he did not seem pleased to hear this
story?"

"Ah! you, too!" exclaimed the Baron angrily, "everybody will know it."

"To take a carafe of kirsch for clear water," continued the notary,
without paying any attention to the Baron's agitation. "The devil! the
safe thing to do is to give him an emetic at once; this poor fellow has
enough prussic acid in his stomach to poison a cow."

"Who is talking of prussic acid and poisoning?" exclaimed the public
prosecutor, running with an unsteady step from one extremity of the table
to the other, "who has been poisoned? I am the public prosecutor, I am
the only one here who has any power to start an investigation. Have they
had an autopsy? Where