ur poor patient's last wishes.... A few minutes ago, she
told me the secret of your double life, and of your connection with
her.... And now, in view of death, which she feels approaching so
rapidly, for she is under no delusion, the unhappy woman wishes to die
at peace with heaven, with the consolation of having regulated her
equivocal position, and of having become your wife."

Monsieur de Saint-Juery sat upright, with a bewildered look, while he
moved his hands nervously; in his grief he was incapable of manifesting
any will of his own, or of opposing this unexpected attack.

"Oh! anything that Charlotte wishes, doctor; anything, and I will myself
go and tell her so, on my knees!"

* * * * *

The wedding took place discreetly, with something funereal about it, in
the darkened room, where the words which were spoken had a strange
sound, almost of anguish. Charlotte, who was lying in bed, with her eyes
dilated through happiness, had put both trembling hands into those of
Monsieur de Saint-Juery, and she seemed to expire with the word: "Yes"
on her lips. The doctor looked at the moving scene, grave and impassive,
with his chin buried in his white cravat, and his two arms resting on
the mantel-piece, while his eyes twinkled behind his glasses....

The next week, Madame de Saint-Juery began to get better, and that
wonderful recovery about which Monsieur de Saint-Juery tells everybody
with effusive gratitude, who will listen to him, has so increased Doctor
Rabatel's reputation, that at the next election he will be made a member
of the Academy of Medicine.

THE WILL

I knew that tall young fellow, Rene de Bourneval. He was an agreeable
man, though of a rather melancholy turn of mind, who seemed prejudiced
against everything, very skeptical, and able to tear worldly hypocrisies
to pieces. He often used to say:

"There are no honorable men, or at any rate, they only appear so when
compared to low people."

He had two brothers, whom he never saw, the Messieurs de Courcils, and I
thought they were by another father, on account of the difference in the
name. I had frequently heard that something strange had happened in the
family, but I did not know the details.

As I took a great liking to him, we soon became intimate, and one
evening, when I had been dining with him alone, I asked him by chance:
"Are you by your mother's first or second marriage?" He grew rather
pale, and then