almost of one who worked miracles.
Here again was a mountain of gold, and of intellect piled up, the
highest mountain among all of them.
In the blue drawing-room a suppressed, many-tongued murmur was
heard. Servants bore about food and drink. Darvid gave cigars to
his worthy guests, the most worthy of all, he who had just
arrived; listened with close attention to the explanation of his
colleagues touching the case before which he was to find himself.
At last, calm, and perfectly correct, with a pleasant smile on
his lips, a smile almost of triumph, Darvid indicated with a
gesture full of welcome the door of his daughter's chamber. The
most famous of the famous entered first, and stopped some steps
from the threshold; behind him stopped the others. On the parched
lips of the sick girl appeared ruby-like drops of blood; her eyes
were opened very widely; to her forehead, which was damp from
perspiration, some slender locks of pale, yellow hair adhered.
Throughout the room sounded in an audible, hoarse whisper:

"Ira! Ira!"

Irene approached quickly, and, bending over, removed, delicately,
with a thin handkerchief, the liquid rubies from the lips of her
sister.

"What do you want, little one; what do you wish?"

Cara fixed on her sister eyes in which something uncommon had
begun to take place, for the dark pupils became larger every
moment, and larger, more prominent, they seemed to grow and to
swell, as if concentrating into one point all power of vision,
until a glassy film began to come down over them, and at the same
time her lips, sprinkled with blood, moved a number of times
wishing to pronounce something and not being able. At last,
fixing on her sister from behind the glassy film the sight of her
swollen pupils, Cara, as if in sign that she understood, shook
her head, and with a whisper which was heard through the room
with a note of alarm and complaint, she said:

"Pain-ted pots!"

Then in her breast a great orchestra began to play: hoarse,
discordant, wheezing, and her head, grown suddenly heavy, fell
into the pillow deeply. Prom the assembly of men standing there
at the door, the most famous, the small sprightly, iron-gray
Frenchman, with a face greatly thoughtful, advanced a few steps,
stood at the bedside, and after some minutes, with his hands
resting on the laboring bosom, cast into the deep silence which
possessed the room these words:

"The agony!"

As if in answer to that word, at the very d