tely, was now an irritating old proser. He had
failed in life and wanted to air all his grievances. At the end of five
minutes' talk Raphael was about to wish that he would depart, when he
caught sight of the magic skin hanging in a frame, with a red line drawn
around it. Suppressing, with a shudder, his secret desire, he patiently
bore with the old man's prolixity. Porriquet wanted very much to ask him
for money, but did not like to do so, and after complaining for quite an
hour or more about things in general, he rose to depart.

"Perhaps," he said, as he turned to leave the room, "I shall hear of a
headmastership of a good school."

"The very thing for you!" said Raphael. "I _wish_ you could get it."

Then, with a sudden cry, he looked at the frame. There was a thin white
edge between the skin and the red line.

"Go, you fool!" he shouted. "I have made you a headmaster. Why didn't
you ask me for an annuity of a thousand pounds instead of using up ten
years of my life on a silly wish? I could have won Foedora at the price!
Conquered a kingdom!"

His lips were covered with froth, and there was a savage light in his
eyes. Porriquet fled in terror. Then Raphael fell back in a chair, and
wept.

"Oh, my precious life!" he sobbed. "No more kindly thoughts! No more
friendship!"

_III.--The Agony of Death_

Raphael's condition had by now become so critical that a trip to Savoy
was advised, and a few weeks later he was at Aix. One day, moving among
the crowd of pleasure-seekers and invalids, a number of young men
deliberately picked a quarrel with him, with the result that from one of
them he received a challenge to fight a duel. Raphael did his utmost to
persuade the other to apologise, even going to the extent of informing
him of the terrible powers he possessed. Failing in his object, the
fatal morning came round, and the unfortunate individual was shot
through the heart. Not heeding the fallen man, Raphael hurriedly glanced
at the skin to see what another man's life had cost him. The talisman
had shrunk to the size of a small oak-leaf.

Seeing that his master was given over to a gloomy despair that verged
upon madness, Jonathan resolved to distract his mind at all costs, and
knowing that he was passionately fond of music, he engaged a box for him
at the Opera. But Raphael was afraid above all things, of falling in
love. Under the illimitable desire of passion the magic skin would
shrivel up in an hour. So he