sit on what they don't lay, and
if some malicious neighbour slips into their nest a----'

"Her grandson interrupted her fiercely. He was pale, and his hands
shook.

"'Don't listen to her,' he cried to me. 'You know what I told you. Don't
listen!'

"'It's a fact!' M. Le Mansel repeated, his round eye fixed in a side
glance at the red egg.

"My further connection with Alexandre Le Mansel contains nothing worth
relating. My friend often spoke of his verses to Tiphaine, but he never
showed them to me. Indeed, I very soon lost sight of him. My mother sent
me to Paris to finish my studies. I took my degree in two faculties,
and then I studied medicine. During the time that I was preparing my
doctor's thesis I received a letter from my mother, who told me that
poor Alexandre had been very ailing, and that after a serious attack he
had become timid and excessively suspicious; that, however, he was quite
harmless, and in spite of the disordered state of his health and reason
he showed an extraordinary aptitude for mathematics. There was nothing
in these tidings to surprise me. Often, as I studied the diseases of the
nervous centres, my mind reverted to my poor friend at Saint Julien,
and in spite of myself I foresaw for him the general paralysis which
inevitably threatened the offspring of a mother racked by chronic
nervous headaches and a rheumatic, addle-brained father.

"The sequel, however, did not, apparently, prove me to be in the right.
Alexandre Le Mansel, as I heard from Avranches, regained his normal
health, and as he grew towards manhood gave active proof of the
brilliancy of his intellect. He worked with ardour at his mathematical
studies, and he even sent to the Academy of Sciences solutions of
several problems hitherto unsolved, which were found to be as elegant as
they were accurate. Absorbed in his work, he rarely found time to write
to me. His letters were affectionate, clear, and to the point, and
nothing could be found in them to arouse the mistrust of the most
suspicious neurologist. However, very soon after this our correspondence
ceased, and I heard nothing more of him for the next ten years.

"Last year I was greatly surprised when my servant brought me the card
of Alexandre Le Mansel, and said that the gentleman was waiting for me
in the ante-room.

"I was in my study consulting with a colleague on a matter of some
importance. However, I begged him to excuse me for a moment while I
hurried to gre