said to me, smiling; "I have no fever, we have nothing to do, I
will tell it to you now."

"Since you really wish it, I will listen."

This is what he told me, and I have scarcely changed a word of
the touching story.

Yes (Armand went on, letting his head sink back on the chair),
yes, it was just such an evening as this. I had spent the day in
the country with one of my friends, Gaston R--. We returned to
Paris in the evening, and not knowing what to do we went to the
Varietes. We went out during one of the entr'actes, and a tall
woman passed us in the corridor, to whom my friend bowed.

"Whom are you bowing to?" I asked.

"Marguerite Gautier," he said.

"She seems much changed, for I did not recognise her," I said,
with an emotion that you will soon understand.

"She has been ill; the poor girl won't last long."

I remember the words as if they had been spoken to me yesterday.

I must tell you, my friend, that for two years the sight of this
girl had made a strange impression on me whenever I came across
her. Without knowing why, I turned pale and my heart beat
violently. I have a friend who studies the occult sciences, and