y hand. "So you meddle with duelling, Doctor? I should
have thought a man of your profession would have looked upon it as a
dangerous competitor."

The physician replied to this very old joke, by a malicious smile, which
he immediately repressed.

"At random you have touched me on the raw," he said, after a moment's
silence. "Shall I tell you the strange, I might say the monstrous idea
that has just come into my head?"

"Pray do. I am rather partial to monstrous ideas."

"It occurred to me that for the interest of my reputation, I ought to
wish the projected duel to prove fatal to Bouchereau."

"Why so?" inquired the officer, with some surprise.

"Because if you don't kill him, in less than a year I shall have the
credit of his death."

"I don't understand. Are you going to fight him?"

"Certainly not; but I am his physician, and as such, responsible for his
existence in the eyes of the vast number of persons who expect medical
science to give sick men the health that nature refuses them. Therefore,
as Bouchereau, according to all appearance, has not a year to live----"

"What's the matter with him?" cried Pelletier, opening his great eyes.

"Consumption!" replied the Doctor, in a compassionate tone, "a chronic
disease--quite incurable! I was about sending him to Nice. We,
physicians, as you know, when we have exhausted the resources of
medicine, send our patients to the waters or to the South. If nothing
happens to him the day after to-morrow, he shall set out: God knows if
he will ever return."

"Consumptive! he who is always as sallow as Debureau."

"Complexion has nothing to do with it."

"And you think he is in danger?"

"I do not give him a year to live; perhaps not six months."

The two men walked some distance, silent and serious.

"Yes, Captain," said the Doctor, breaking the pause, "we may look upon
Poor Bouchereau as a dead man, even setting aside the risk he incurs
from your good blade. Before twelve months are past, his wife may think
about a second husband. She will be a charming little widow, and will
not want for admirers."

Pelletier cast a sidelong look at his companion, but the Doctor's air of
perfect simplicity dispelled the suspicion his last words had awakened.

"If Bouchereau died, his wife would be rich?" said the Captain,
musingly, but in an interrogative tone.

"_Peste!_" replied Magnian, "you may say that. Not one hundred thousand,
but two hundred thousand crowns, at the