, overcame
self, caused sleeping powers of good to waken. For this work of
Raphael's had the imperious charm of music; you were brought under the
spell of memories of the past; his triumph was so absolute that the
artist was forgotten. The witchery of the lamplight heightened the
wonder; the head seemed at times to flicker in the distance, enveloped
in cloud.

"I covered the surface of that picture with gold pieces," said the
merchant carelessly.

"And now for death!" cried the young man, awakened from his musings. His
last thought had recalled his fate to him, as it led him imperceptibly
back from the forlorn hopes to which he had clung.

"Ah, ha! then my suspicions were well founded!" said the other, and his
hands held the young man's wrists in a grip like that of a vice.

The younger man smiled wearily at his mistake, and said gently:

"You, sir, have nothing to fear; it is not your life, but my own that
is in question.... But why should I hide a harmless fraud?" he went on,
after a look at the anxious old man. "I came to see your treasures to
while away the time till night should come and I could drown myself
decently. Who would grudge this last pleasure to a poet and a man of
science?"

While he spoke, the jealous merchant watched the haggard face of his
pretended customer with keen eyes. Perhaps the mournful tones of his
voice reassured him, or he also read the dark signs of fate in the faded
features that had made the gamblers shudder; he released his hands, but,
with a touch of caution, due to the experience of some hundred years at
least, he stretched his arm out to a sideboard as if to steady himself,
took up a little dagger, and said:

"Have you been a supernumerary clerk of the Treasury for three years
without receiving any perquisites?"

The stranger could scarcely suppress a smile as he shook his head.

"Perhaps your father has expressed his regret for your birth a little
too sharply? Or have you disgraced yourself?"

"If I meant to be disgraced, I should live."

"You have been hissed perhaps at the Funambules? Or you have had to
compose couplets to pay for your mistress' funeral? Do you want to be
cured of the gold fever? Or to be quit of the spleen? For what blunder
is your life forfeit?"

"You must not look among the common motives that impel suicides for the
reason of my death. To spare myself the task of disclosing my unheard-of
sufferings, for which language has no name, I will tell yo