From the French of Saint-Juirs.
OU are a dead man!" said the doctor, looking intently at Anatole.
Anatole staggered.
He had come gaily to pass the evening with his old friend, Dr. Bardais, the illustrious savant whose works on venomous substances are known all over the world, whose nobility of heart and almost paternal goodness Anatole had learned to know better than any other living soul; and now, without the least hesitation or preparation, he heard this terrible prognostication issue from those authoritative lips!
"Unhappy child, what have you done?" continued the doctor.
"Nothing that I know of," stammered Anatole, greatly agitated.
"Tax your memory, tell me what you have eaten or drunk—what you have inhaled?"
The last word was a ray of light to Anatole. That very morning he had received a letter from one of his friends who was travelling in India; in the letter was a flower plucked on a bank of the Ganges by the traveller—a strangely-formed red flower, the perfume of which—he now recalled the fact vividly—had appeared to him to be singularly penetrative. He hastily drew forth his pocket-book and produced the letter with its contents and handed them to the savant.
"No doubt is possible!" cried the doctor; "it is the Pyramenensis Indica! the deadly flower, the flower of blood!"
"Then,—you—really think—?"
"Alas! I am sure of it."
"But—it is impossible!—I am only five-and-twenty years of age, and feel full of life and health!—"
"At what hour did you open that fatal letter?"
"This morning, at nine o'clock."
"Well-to-morrow morning, at the same hour, at the same minute, in full health, as you say, you will feel a pain in your heart—and all will be over."
