very gravely, "if you had suggested it sooner. I am sorry to say the
suggestion comes too late. My poor friend breathed his last half an
hour ago."





BOOK THE SECOND.


THE TWO MACAIRES.




CHAPTER I.

A GOLDEN TEMPLE.


In the very midst of the Belgian iron country, under the shadow of
tall sheltering ridges of pine-clad mountain-land, nestles the
fashionable little watering-place called Foretdechene. Two or three
handsome hotels; a bright white new pile of building, with vast windows
of shining plate-glass, and a stately quadrangular courtyard; a tiny
street, which looks as if a fragment of English Brighton had been
dropped into this Belgian valley; a stunted semi-classic temple, which
is at once a post-office and a shrine whereat invalids perform their
worship of Hygeia by the consumption of unspeakably disagreeable