ped Paul into a chair,
and stood over him with a look of friendly solicitude.

'A little stimulant, I think,' he said at last, in a tone of
commonplace, and set a hand on the decanter which Annette had so
recently laid down.

'Not that, Laurent!' cried Paul, with a gesture the other was swift to
interpret.

The doctor left the room with a meaningless, friendly tap on Paul's
shoulder, and came back a few instants later with a bottle of brandy.

'I insist,' he said commandingly, in answer to Paul's rejecting wave of
the hand.

When Laurent insisted there were few people who said him nay, and Paul
took the potion which was poured out for him.

He could remember it all, from this point onward, as if he had been a
mere disinterested spectator of the scene. He could see his own figure
straightening itself mechanically in the chair in which it sat. He could
see himself mechanically throwing one leg over another, and assuming an
attitude of indifference and ease. He could see himself distinctly in
the act of knocking out the ashes of his pipe upon the grate; in the
refilling and lighting of it; in the numberless little gestures which
seemed to indicate an entire possession of himself And all the while
something was booming in his mind as if the word 'lost 'were only half
articulated there--a scarcely uttered word that carried doom with it.

'I do not know,' said Laurent, speaking, for a man of his experience
and authority, rather brokenly--'I do not know whether it was my duty to
have spoken earlier. I have not known you very long; but we have learned
to like each other, and I would have done you the service to tell you
what I knew a month or two ago if I could have found the courage. But I
will ask you to believe that I was much perplexed, and that I could not
resolve in my own mind whether or not you knew already. It would have
seemed a cruel thing to intrude upon such a secret.'

'Yes,' said Paul, breaking silence for the first time since he had
entered the house, 'I understand that' He pulled gravely at his pipe,
and sipped again at the glass Laurent had poured out for him. 'What's
going to be done?' he asked; and then, with a sudden petulance, 'What
have I got to do?'

'In a patient so young,' said Laurent, 'unless there is some hereditary
taint to combat, there should be no impossibility in establishing a
cure. What of Madame Armstrong's heredity?' What did Paul know of Madame
Armstrong's heredity? Save for a c