his sombre terror of annihilation."

At the end of September he again visited Cannes, but the fatal day
predicted by the physician was at hand.

After several tragic weeks in which, from instinct, he made a
desperate fight, on the 1st of January, 1892, he felt he was
hopelessly vanquished, and in a moment of supreme clearness of
intellect, like Gerard de Nerval, he attempted suicide. Less fortunate
than the author of Sylvia, he was unsuccessful. But his mind,
henceforth "indifferent to all unhappiness," had entered into eternal
darkness.

He was taken back to Paris and placed in Dr. Meuriot's sanatorium,
where, after eighteen months of mechanical existence, the "meteor"
quietly passed away.

* * * * *

UNE VIE

OR, THE HISTORY OF A HEART


CHAPTER I

THE HOME BY THE SEA

The weather was most distressing. It had rained all night. The roaring
of the overflowing gutters filled the deserted streets, in which the