enter, the sound of voices detained him behind the lowered portiere.
It was Louis's voice, as whining as that of a pauper under a porch,
trying to move the duke to pity for his distress and asking his
permission to take a few rolls of gold that were lying in a drawer. Oh!
what a hoarse, wearied, hardly audible reply, in which one could feel
the effort of the sick man compelled to turn in his bed, to remove his
eyes from a distant point already clearly distinguished:

"Yes, yes--take them. But for God's sake let me sleep! let me sleep!"

Drawers opened and closed, a hurried, panting breath. Monpavon heard no
more, but retraced his steps without entering the room. The servant's
ferocious greed had given his pride the alarm. Anything rather than
degrade himself to that point.

The slumber for which Mora begged so persistently, the lethargy, to
speak more accurately, lasted a whole night and morning, with partial
awakenings caused by excruciating pain which yielded each time to
soporifics. They did nothing for him except to try to make his last
moments comfortable, to help him over that last step which it requires
such a painful effort to pass. His eyes had opened during that time, but
they were already dim, staring into emptiness at wavering shadows,
indistinct forms, like those which a diver sees quivering in the vague
depths of the water. On Thursday afternoon, about three o'clock, he
recovered consciousness completely, and, recognizing Monpavon,
Cardailhac and two or three other close friends, smiled at them and
betrayed in a word his sole preoccupation:

"What do people say of this in Paris?"

People said many things, diverse and contradictory; but one thing was
certain, that they talked of nothing else, and the report which had been
circulated through the city that morning, that Mora was at death's
door, had put the streets, the salons, the cafes, the studios in a
ferment, revived political questions in the newspaper offices, in the
clubs, and even in porters' lodges and on the omnibuses, wherever open
newspapers furnished a pretext for comment on that startling item of
news.

This Mora was the most brilliant incarnation of the Empire. The part of
a building that we see from afar is not its foundation, be it solid or
tottering, not its architectural features, but the slender, gilded
arrow, fancifully carved and perforated, added for the gratification of
the eye. What people saw of the Empire in France and throu