y said:

"You will not take my prescription."

The f.m.c. did not say yes or no.

"Still,"--the doctor turned sideways in his chair, as was his wont, and,
as he spoke, allowed the corners of his mouth to take that little
satirical downward pull which his friends disliked, "I'll do my duty.
I'll give Honore the details as to diet; no physic; but my prescription
to you is, Get up and get out. Never mind the risk of rough handling;
they can but kill you, and you will die anyhow if you stay here." He
rose. "I'll send you a chalybeate tonic; or--I will leave it at
Frowenfeld's to-morrow morning, and you can call there and get it. It
will give you an object for going out."

The two visitors presently said adieu and retired together. Reaching the
bottom of the stairs in the carriage "corridor," they turned in a
direction opposite to the entrance and took chairs in a cool nook of the
paved court, at a small table where the hospitality of Clemence had
placed glasses of lemonade.

"No," said the doctor, as they sat down, "there is, as yet, no incurable
organic derangement; a little heart trouble easily removed; still
your--your patient--"

"My half-brother," said Honore.

"Your patient," said Doctor Keene, "is an emphatic 'yes' to the question
the girls sometimes ask us doctors--Does love ever kill?' It will kill
him _soon_, if you do not get him to rouse up. There is absolutely
nothing the matter with him but his unrequited love."

"Fortunately, the most of us," said Honore, with something of the
doctor's smile, "do not love hard enough to be killed by it."

"Very few." The doctor paused, and his blue eyes, distended in reverie,
gazed upon the glass which he was slowly turning around with his
attenuated fingers as it stood on the board, while he added: "However,
one _may_ love as hopelessly and harder than that man upstairs, and
yet not die."

"There is comfort in that--to those who must live," said Honore with
gentle gravity.

"Yes," said the other, still toying with his glass.

He slowly lifted his glance, and the eyes of the two men met and
remained steadfastly fixed each upon each.

"You've got it bad," said Doctor Keene, mechanically.

"And you?" retorted the Creole.

"It isn't going to kill me."

"It has not killed me. And," added M. Grandissime, as they passed
through the carriage-way toward the street, "while I keep in mind the
numberless other sorrows of life, the burials of wives and sons and
daug