r," she shakes hands with me, and she says, "Thank you,
good Madame Bouisse, for all your kindness to me.... Hear that, M'sieur,
'good Madame Bouisse,'--the dear child!"

"And then--?"

"Bah! how impatient you are! Well, then, she says (after thanking me,
you observe)--'I have paid you my rent, Madame Bouisse, up to the end of
the present month, and if, when the time has expired, I have neither
written nor returned, consider me still as your tenant. If, however, I
do not come back at all, I will let you know further respecting the care
of my books and other property."

If she did not come back at all! Oh, Heaven! I had never contemplated
such a possibility. I left Madame Bouisse without another word, and
going up to my own rooms, flung myself upon my bed, as if I were
stupefied.

All that night, all the next day, those words haunted me. They seemed to
have burned themselves into my brain in letters of fire. Dreaming, I
woke up with them upon my lips; reading, they started out upon me from
the page. "If I never come back at all!"

At last, when the fifth day came round--the fifth day of the third week
of her absence--I became so languid and desponding that I lost all power
of application.

Even Dr. Cheron noticed it, and calling me in the afternoon to his
private room, said:--

"Basil Arbuthnot, you look ill. Are you working too hard?"

"I don't think so, sir."

"Humph! Are you out much at night?"

"Out, sir?"

"Yes--don't echo my words--do you go into society: frequent balls,
theatres, and so forth?"

"I have not done so, sir, for several months past."

"What is it, then? Do you read late?"

"Really, sir, I hardly know--up to about one or two o'clock; on the
average, I believe."

"Let me feel your pulse."

I put out my wrist, and he held it for some seconds, looking keenly at
me all the time.

"Got anything on your mind?" he asked, after he had dropped it again.
"Want money, eh?"

"No, sir, thank you."

"Home-sick?"

"Not in the least."

"Hah! want amusement. Can't work perpetually--not reasonable to suppose
it. There, _mon garcon_," (taking a folded paper from his pocket-book)
"there's a prescription for you. Make the most of it."

It was a stall-ticket for the opera. Too restless and unhappy to reject
any chance of relief, however temporary, I accepted it, and went.

I had not been to a theatre since that night with Josephine, nor to the
Italian Opera since I used to go with Madame de