ther is ill, and Madame la Vicomtesse and myself are
with her.
"DAVID."

In the state I was it took me a long time to compose this much, and I
had barely finished it when there was a knock at the outer door. There
was Andre. He had the immobility of face which sometimes goes with the
mulatto, and always with the trained servant, as he informed me that
Monsieur le Medecin was not at home, but that he had left word. There
was an epidemic, Monsieur, so Andre feared. I gave him the note and his
directions, and ten minutes after he had gone I would have given much to
have called him back. How about Antoinette, alone at Les Iles? Why had
I not thought of her? We had told her nothing that morning, Madame la
Vicomtesse and I, after our conference with Nick. For the girl had shut
herself in her room, and Madame had thought it best not to disturb her at
such a stage. But would she not be alarmed when Helene failed to return
that night? Had circumstances been different, I myself would have ridden
to Les Iles, but no inducement now could make me desert the post I had
chosen. After many years I dislike to recall to memory that long
afternoon which I spent, helpless, in the Rue Bourbon. Now I was on my
feet, pacing restlessly the short breadth of the room, trying to shut out
from my mind the horrors of which my ears gave testimony. Again, in the
intervals of quiet, I sat with my elbows on the table and my head in my
hands, striving to allay the throbbing in my temples. Pains came and
went, and at times I felt like a fagot flung into the fire,--I, who had
never known a sick day. At times my throat pained me, an odd symptom in
a warm climate. Troubled as I was in mind and body, the thought of
Helene's quiet heroism upheld me through it all. More than once I had my
hand raised to knock at the bedroom door and ask if I could help, but I
dared not; at length, the sun having done its worst and spent its fury, I
began to hear steps along the banquette and voices almost at my elbow
beyond the little window. At every noise I peered out, hoping for the
doctor. But he did not come. And then, as I fell back into the
fauteuil, there was borne on my consciousness a sound I had heard before.
It was the music of the fiddler, it was a tune I knew, and the voices of
the children were singing the refrain:--

"Ne sait quand reviendra,
Ne sait quand reviendra."

I rose, opened the door, and slipped out of it, and I must have made a