l legal forms having been gone through,
we bury the deceased."

"So soon?"

"So soon? In these eases of advanced pulmonary disease the sooner the
better. The French custom of speedy interment may be defended as more
wholesome than our own. On the other hand, I admit that it has its weak
points. Cremation is, perhaps, the best and only method of removing the
dead which is open to no objections except one. I mean, of course, the
chance that the deceased may have met with his death by means of
poison. But such cases are rare, and, in most instances, would be
detected by the medical man in attendance before or at the time of
death. I think we need not----My dear friend, you look ill. Are you
upset by such a simple thing as the death of a sick man? Let me
prescribe for you. A glass of brandy neat. So," he went into the _salle
'a manger_ and returned with his medicine. "Take that. Now let us
talk." The doctor continued his conversation in a cheerfully scientific
strain, never alluding to the conspiracy or to the consequences which
might follow. He told hospital stories bearing on deaths sudden and
unexpected; some of them he treated in a jocular vein. The dead man in
the next room was a Case: he knew of many similar and equally
interesting Cases. When one has arrived at looking upon a dead man as a
Case, there is little fear of the ordinary human weakness which makes
us tremble in the awful presence of death.

Presently steps were heard outside. The doctor rose and left the
room--but returned in a few minutes.

"The _croque-morts_ have come," he said. "They are with the nurse
engaged upon their business. It seems revolting to the outside world.
To them it is nothing but the daily routine of work. By-the-way, I took
a photograph of his lordship in the presence of the nurse.
Unfortunately--but look at it----"

"It is the face of the dead man"--Lord Harry turned away. "I don't want
to see it. I cannot bear to see it. You forget--I was actually present
when--"

"Not when he died. Come, don't be a fool. What I was going to say was
this: The face is no longer in the least like you. Nobody who ever saw
you once even would believe that this is your face. The creature--he
has given us an unconscionable quantity of trouble--was a little like
you when he first came. I was wrong in supposing that this likeness was
permanent. Now he is dead, he is not in the least like you. I ought to
have remembered that the resemblance would fad