and best-dressed women take their leave one by one till the room
is left empty and desolate. The active hands became palsy-stricken,
the shapely legs tottered as he walked. At last, one night, a stroke of
apoplexy caught him by the throat in its icy clutch. After that fatal
day he grew morose and stern.

He would reproach his wife and son with their devotion, casting it in
their teeth that the affecting and thoughtful care that they lavished
so tenderly upon him was bestowed because they knew that his money was
invested in a life annuity. Then Elvira and Felipe would shed bitter
tears and redouble their caresses, and the wicked old man's insinuating
voice would take an affectionate tone--"Ah, you will forgive me, will
you not, dear friends, dear wife? I am rather a nuisance. Alas, Lord in
heaven, how canst Thou use me as the instrument by which Thou provest
these two angelic creatures? I who should be the joy of their lives am
become their scourge..."

In this manner he kept them tethered to his pillow, blotting out the
memory of whole months of fretfulness and unkindness in one short
hour when he chose to display for them the ever-new treasures of his
pinchbeck tenderness and charm of manner--a system of paternity that
yielded him an infinitely better return than his own father's indulgence
had formerly gained. At length his bodily infirmities reached a point
when the task of laying him in bed became as difficult as the navigation
of a felucca in the perils of an intricate channel. Then came the day of
his death; and this brilliant sceptic, whose mental faculties alone had
survived the most dreadful of all destructions, found himself between
his two special antipathies--the doctor and the confessor. But he was
jovial with them. Did he not see a light gleaming in the future
beyond the veil? The pall that is like lead for other men was thin and
translucent for him; the light-footed, irresistible delights of youth
danced beyond it like shadows.

It was on a beautiful summer evening that Don Juan felt the near
approach of death. The sky of Spain was serene and cloudless; the air
was full of the scent of orange-blossom; the stars shed clear, pure
gleams of light; nature without seemed to give the dying man assurance
of resurrection; a dutiful and obedient son sat there watching him with
loving and respectful eyes. Towards eleven o'clock he desired to be left
alone with this single-hearted being.

"Felipe," said the