him?"

The servant entered, and the Count placed the letter in his bosom. A
half hour passed in anxious expectation of Matheus. The wheels of a
carriage were heard in the courtyard and aroused the Count from his
thoughts. The servant went to meet the Doctor and soon after introduced
Frederick von Apsberg into the room.

"Look there," said the Count, pointing to La Felina.

The doctor drew near and examined her.

"Suicide and laudanum," said he. He felt the pulse. "Just in
time--luckily you told me what was the matter, and I have brought some
active and powerful antidotes. In a quarter of an hour cerebral
congestion would have ensued, and death." He poured out a few drops of a
liquid he had brought in a glass spoon, and forced it between the
convulsive teeth of the Duchess. Three minutes afterwards she heaved a
deep sigh. "Now I will answer for her recovery," said Von Apsberg. The
Duchess opened her eyes soon after and glanced around her. She was,
though, unable to distinguish any thing, so haggard and fixed had they
become. The Count stood aside. For a few moments through the vast room
nothing was heard but the feeble panting and anxious breathing of the
invalid, which, however, gradually grew more regular and natural.

"Madame," said the doctor, giving the Duchess a glass of water, into
which he had poured a few drops of the liquid he had brought with him,
"do you wish to live?"

"No," said the Duchess.

"Then do not take this antidote, for the poison is yet in your system
and this alone can neutralize it."

Just then Monte-Leone advanced towards La Felina.

"He here!" murmured she.

"Live," said the Count, "live, I beg you."

Without replying, the Duchess looked towards the doctor as if she were
about to ask him for the elixir. She drained the glass.

"Now," said Von Apsberg, "madame must be calm and silent; least of all
must she indulge in any emotion," added he, looking at Monte-Leone, "or
the medicine will be powerless."

"Who are _you_?" said the Duchess.

"A friend, a brother of mine, to whose heart I confide all the secrets
of my life."

_La Felina_ glanced a few moments at the doctor, and said, "I remember."

"Certainly, the Duchess has not forgot the Pulcinella at the Eutruscan
house. She has not forgotten the dreamy German lad whom she once
lectured so sternly, but who never was offended with her. The lecture
did him a great service, for the joyous Pulcinella, changing his humor
and dress