ne stared. "But I do not think"--she ventured with hesitation--and
then as she gained courage, she went on more firmly--"that I can take
it! I dare not, Messer Syndic."

"Why not?"

"Papers for the State--were one thing," she stammered in confusion; "but
to take this--a bottle--would be stealing!"

The Syndic's eyes sparkled. His passion overcame him. "Girl, don't play
with me!" he cried. "Don't dare to play with me!" And then as she shrank
back alarmed by his tone, and shocked by this sudden peeping forth of
the tragic and the real, lo, in a twinkling he was another man,
trembling, and holding out shaking hands to her. "Get it for me!" he
said. "Get it for me, girl! I will tell you what it is! If I had told
you before, I had had it now, and I should be whole and well! whole and
well. You have a heart and can pity! Women can pity. Then pity me! I am
rich, but I am dying! I am a dying man, rising up and lying down,
counting the days as I walk the streets, and seeing the shroud rise
higher and higher upon my breast!"

He paused for breath, endeavouring to gain some command of himself;
while she, carried off her feet by this rush of words, stared at him in
stupefaction. Before he came he had made up his mind to tell her the
truth--or something like the truth. But he had not intended to tell the
truth in this way until, face to face with her and met by her scruples,
he let the impulse to tell the whole carry him away.

He steadied his lips with a shaking hand. "You know now why I want it,"
he resumed, speaking huskily and with restrained emotion. "'Tis life!
Life, girl! In that"--he fought with himself before he could bring out
the word--"in that phial is my life! Is life for whoever takes it! It is
the _remedium_, it is strength, life, youth, and but one--but one dose
in all the world! Do you wonder--I am dying!--that I want it? Do you
wonder--I am dying!--that I will have it? But"--with a strange grimace
intended to reassure her--"I frighten you, I frighten you."

"No!" she said, though in truth she had unconsciously retreated almost
to the door of the staircase before his extended hands. "But I--I
scarcely understand, Messer Blondel. If you will please to tell me----"

"Yes, yes!"

"What Messer Basterga--how he comes to have this?" She must parley with
him until she could collect her thoughts; until she could make up her
mind whether he was sane or mad and what it behoved her to do.

"Comes to have it!" he crie