hands, and the final scenes were written in the
theatre itself, and the parts copied in one of the dressing-rooms. For
the last fortnight of the work there was time to think of nothing
else, and when the very tag was written there was labour enough left to
satisfy even Darco.

No better medicine for Paul's malady could have been prescribed than
he found in this ceaseless mental occupation. It shook him out of
his useless moonings, and brought his mind back to its old healthy
elasticity, and when at last the decisive night came, and the play went
with a roar from start to finish, he went to bed to sleep the clock
round, and awoke to triumph.

Out of an idea which had cropped up in the course of work, and had
been abandoned as being too heavy to be employed as a mere episode, the
indefatigable Darco had already constructed a new plot, and was fain to
begin at once upon its development. But Paul insisted upon at least a
fortnight's holiday, and carried his point. There was no further fear of
financial embarrassment for many months to come. Annette's liabilities
were paid. A lawyer was engaged to make settled arrangements with her,
and for awhile there was a clear prospect and free air to breathe. Then
came the new work, carried on at a less fiery pressure than the old, but
yet pursued with diligence. It lasted six months, and was not likely
to be in demand for another half-year. Gertrude was back in Paris,
and thither went Paul, prepared to study the platonic theory in a more
philosophical spirit than he had hitherto displayed. She was charming.
She could not easily cease to be charm ing, but she maddened no longer,
and if she had had a heart at all, her lover's extreme placidity might
have piqued her into love. It could not do that, but it served to
introduce upon the scene an episode of some humour.

Madame la Baronne de Wyeth could not exist without an adorer. It was
an agreeable thing enough to have two at a time, and would have been
agreeable to have had a dozen had the creatures been manageable. Mr.
Ricardo P. Janes, of Boston, Massachusetts, was a young man of excellent
family connections, and in enjoyment of liberal means. He was a very
handsome boy of four- or five-and-twenty, and having a taste for art and
the Muses in general, he was studying in the atelier of a famous French
painter. He took life seriously, and wrote nice verses. He was simple
and enthusiastic, pure-minded and romantic, and altogether eligib