Raphael's condition had by now become so critical that a trip to Savoy
was advised, and a few weeks later he was at Aix. One day, moving among
the crowd of pleasure-seekers and invalids, a number of young men
deliberately picked a quarrel with him, with the result that from one of
them he received a challenge to fight a duel. Raphael did his utmost to
persuade the other to apologise, even going to the extent of informing
him of the terrible powers he possessed. Failing in his object, the
fatal morning came round, and the unfortunate individual was shot
through the heart. Not heeding the fallen man, Raphael hurriedly glanced
at the skin to see what another man's life had cost him. The talisman
had shrunk to the size of a small oak-leaf.

Seeing that his master was given over to a gloomy despair that verged
upon madness, Jonathan resolved to distract his mind at all costs, and
knowing that he was passionately fond of music, he engaged a box for him
at the Opera. But Raphael was afraid above all things, of falling in
love. Under the illimitable desire of passion the magic skin would
shrivel up in an hour. So he used a strange, distorting opera-glass
which made the loveliest face seem hideous.

With this he sat in his box, he surveyed the scene around him. Who was
that old man over there, sitting beside a dancing-girl that Raphael had
seen at Taillefer's? The owner of the curiosity shop! He had at last
fallen in love, as Raphael had jestingly desired. No doubt the magic
skin had shrunk under that wish before Raphael had measured it. A
beautiful woman entered the theatre with a peer of France at her side. A
murmur of admiration arose as she took her seat. She smiled at Raphael.
In spite of the distorted image on his opera-glass, Raphael knew her. It
was the Countess Foedora! In a single glance of intolerable scorn the