s. Providence sent him to
Ville d'Avray to save us from an awful misfortune. Possessing an
immense fortune, he is, like so many of his countrymen, a victim
to _spleen_, and it is only his natural force of character which
has saved him from the worst results of that malady. His
indifference to life and the perfect coolness with which he spoke
of suicide won him Marie-Gaston's friendship in Florence. Lord
Lewin, having studied the subject of violent emotions, is very
intimate with Doctor Ellis, a noted alienist, and it not
infrequently happens that he spends two or three weeks with him at
Hanwell, Middlesex Co., one of the best-managed lunatic asylums in
England,--Doctor Ellis being in charge of it.

When he arrived at Ville d'Avray, Lord Lewin saw at once that
Marie-Gaston had all the symptoms of incipient mania. Invisible to
other eyes, they were apparent to those of Lord Lewin. In speaking
to me of our poor friend, he used the word _chiffonait_,--meaning
that he picked up rubbish as he walked, bits of straw, scraps of
paper, rusty nails, and put them carefully into his pocket. That,
he informed me, is a marked symptom well known to those who study
the first stages of insanity. Enticing him to the subject of their
conversations in Florence, he obtained the fact that the poor
fellow meditated suicide, and the reason for it. Every night,
Gaston told him, his wife appeared to him, and he had now resolved
to _rejoin_ her, to use his own expression. Instead of opposing
this idea, Lord Lewin took a tone of approval. "But," he said,
"men such as we ought not to die in a common way. I myself have
always had the idea of going to South America, where, not far from
Paraguay, there is one of the greatest cataracts in the world,
--the Saut de Gayra. The mists rising from it can be seen at a
distance of many miles. An enormous volume of water is suddenly
forced through a narrow channel, and rushes with terrific force
and the noise of a hundred thunder-claps into the gulf below.
There, indeed, one could find a noble death."

"Let us go there," said Gaston.

"Yes," said Lord Lewin, "I am ready to go at once; we must sail
from England; it will take a few weeks to get there."

In this way, madame, he enticed our poor friend to England, where,
as you will already have supposed, he has placed him in charge of
Doctor Ellis, who, they say, has not his equal in E