atment by hypodermic injections, with the
purpose of amplifying it--a confused vision of a new therapeutics;
a vague and remote theory based on his convictions and his personal
experience of the beneficent dynamic influence of work.

Now every morning, when he seated himself at his table, he would lament:

"I shall not live long enough; life is too short."

He seemed to feel that he must not lose another hour. And one morning
he looked up abruptly and said to his companion, who was copying a
manuscript at his side:

"Listen well, Clotilde. If I should die--"

"What an idea!" she protested, terrified.

"If I should die," he resumed, "listen to me well--close all the doors
immediately. You are to keep the envelopes, you, you only. And when you
have collected all my other manuscripts, send them to Ramond. These are
my last wishes, do you hear?"

But she refused to listen to him.

"No, no!" she cried hastily, "you talk nonsense!"

"Clotilde, swear to me that you will keep the envelopes, and that you
will send all my other papers to Ramond."

At last, now very serious, and her eyes filled with tears, she gave
him the promise he desired. He caught her in his arms, he, too, deeply
moved, and lavished caresses upon her, as if his heart had all at once
reopened to her. Presently he recovered his calmness, and spoke of his
fears. Since he had been trying to work they seemed to have returned. He
kept constant watch upon the press, pretending to have observed Martine
prowling about it. Might they not work upon the fanaticism of this girl,
and urge her to a bad action, persuading her that she was securing her
master's eternal welfare? He had suffered so much from suspicion! In the
dread of approaching solitude his former tortures returned--the tortures
of the scientist, who is menaced and persecuted by his own, at his own
fireside, in his very flesh, in the work of his brain.

One evening, when he was again discussing this subject with Clotilde, he
said unthinkingly:

"You know that when you are no longer here--"

She turned very pale and, as he stopped with a start, she cried:

"Oh, master, master, you have not given up that dreadful idea, then?
I can see in your eyes that you are hiding something from me, that you
have a thought which you no longer share with me. But if I go away and
you should die, who will be here then to protect your work?"

Thinking that she had become reconciled, to the idea of her departure,