It was at the close of a sultry day that a sick man, wan, pale, and almost voiceless, sat propped up by pillows, and seeming to drink in with a sort of effort the faint breeze that entered by an open window. A large bouquet of fresh flowers stood in a vase beside him, and on the bed itself moss-roses and carnations were scattered, their gorgeous tints terribly in contrast to the sickly pallor of that visage on which death had already placed its stamp. It would have puzzled the wiliest physiognomist to have read that strange and strongly-marked face; for while the massive head and strong brow, the yet brilliant eye and contracted eyebrow, denoted energy and daring, there was a faint smile, inexpressibly sad and weary-looking, on the mouth, that seemed to bespeak a heart that had experienced many an emotion, and ended by finding ‘all barren.’

A long, low sigh escaped him as he lay, and in his utter weariness his hands dropped listlessly, one falling over the side of the bed. The watchful nurse, who, in the dress of her order as a Sister of Charity, sat nigh, arose and leaned over to regard him.

‘No, Constance, not yet,’ said he, smiling faintly, and answering the unspoken thought that was passing in her mind; ‘not yet; but very near—very near indeed. What hour is it?’

‘St. Roch has just chimed half-past seven,’ replied she calmly.

‘Open the window wider; there is a little air stirring.’

‘No; the evening is very still, but it will be fresher by and by.’

‘I shall not need it,’ said he, more faintly, though with perfect calm. ‘Before midnight, Constance—before midnight it will be the same to me if it breathed a zephyr or blew a gale: where I am going it will do neither.’

‘Oh, Citizen, can I not persuade you to see the PÈre Dulaque or the CurÉ of St. Roch? Your minutes are few here now, and I implore you not to waste them.’

‘’Tis so that I intend, my worthy friend,’ said he calmly. ‘Had either of these excellent men you mention made the voyage I am now going, I would speak to them willingly; but remember, Constance, it is a sea without a chart.’

‘Say not so in the face of that blessed Book——’

‘Nay, nay, do not disturb my few moments of calm. How sweet those flowers are! How balmy that little air that now stirs the leaves! Oh, what a fair world it is, or rather it might be! Do not sigh so heavily, Constance; remember what I told you yesterday; our belief is like our loyalty—it is independent of us.’

‘Let some holy man at least speak to you.’

‘Why should I shock his honest faith? Why should he disturb my peace. Know, woman,’ added he, more energetically, ‘that I have striven harder to attain this same faith than ever you have done to resist a heresy. I needed it a thousand times more than you; I ‘d have done more to gain it—clung closer to it when won too.’

‘What did you do?’ asked she boldly.

‘I read, reflected, pondered years long—disputed, discussed, read more—inquired wherever I hoped to meet enlightenment.’

‘You never prayed,’ said she meekly.

‘Prayed! How should I—not knowing for what, or to whom?’

An exclamation—almost a cry—escaped the woman, and her lips were seen to move rapidly, as if in prayer. The sick man seemed to respect the sentiment of devotion that he could not bring himself to feel, and was silent. At last he said, in a voice of much sweetness, ‘Your patient care and kindness are not the less dear to me that I ascribe them to a source your humility would reject. I believe in human nature, my good Constance, though of a verity it has given me strong lessons not to be over-sanguine.’

‘Who has had more friends?’ began she; but he stopped her short at once by a contemptuous gesture with his hand, while he said—

‘Men are your friends in life as they are your companions on a journey—so long as your road lies in the same direction they will travel with you. To bear with your infirmities, to take count of your trials, and make allowance for your hardships; to find out what of good there is in you, and teach you to fertilise it for yourself; to discern the soil of your nature, expel its weeds, and still to be hopeful—this is friendship. But it never comes from a brother man; it is a woman alone can render it. Who is it that knocks there?’ asked he quickly.

She went to the door and speedily returned with the answer—

‘It is the same youth who was here yesterday, and refused to give his name. He is still most urgent in his demand to see you.’

‘Does he know what he asks—that I am on the eve of a long journey, and must needs have my thoughts engaged about the road before me?’

‘I told him you were very ill—very ill indeed; that even your dearest friends only saw you for a few minutes at a time; but he persisted in asserting that if you knew he was there, you would surely see him.’

‘Let his perseverance have its reward. Tell him to come in.’

The sister returned to the door, and after a whispered word to the stranger, enforcing caution in his interview, admitted him, and pointing to the bed where the sick man lay, she retired.

If the features and gestures of the stranger, as he moved silently across the room, denoted the delicacy of a certain refinement, his dress bespoke great poverty; his clothes were ragged, his shoes in tatters, and even the red woollen cap which he had just removed from his head was patched in several places.

The sick man motioned to him to stand where the light would fall upon him strongly; and then, having stared steadfastly at him for several minutes, he sighed drearily, and said, ‘What have you with me?’

‘Don’t you remember me, then, Signor Gabriel?’ asked the young man, in a tone of deep agitation. ‘Don’t you remember Fitzgerald?’

‘The boy of the Maremma—the Garde du Corps—the favourite of the Queen—the postilion on the flight to Va-rennes—the secret letter-carrier to the Temple——’

‘Speak lower, Monsieur! speak lower, I beseech you,’ interposed the other. ‘If I were betrayed, my life is not worth an hour’s purchase.’

‘And is it worth preserving in such a garb as that? I thought you had been an apter scholar, Gerald, and that ere this you had found your way to fortune. The Prince de CondÉ wrote me that you were his trustiest agent.’

‘And it is on a mission from him that I am here this day. I have been waiting for weeks long to see and speak with you. I knew that you were ill, and could find no means to approach you.’

‘You come too late, my friend—too late,’ said Mirabeau, sighing: ‘Royalist, Girondin, Bourbon, or the Mountain, they are all illusions now!’

‘The great principles of justice are not an illusion, sir; the idea of Right is immutable and immortal!’

‘I know of nothing that does not change and die,’ said Mirabeau gravely; then added, ‘But what would you with me?’

‘I have not courage to disturb your suffering sick-bed with cares you can no longer feel. I had not imagined I should have found you so ill as this.’

‘Sick unto death—if you can tell me what death means,’ said the other with a strange smile.

‘They who sent me,’ resumed Gerald, not heeding his last remark, ‘believed you in all the vigour of health as of intellect. They have watched with almost breathless interest the glorious conflict you have long maintained against the men of anarchy and the guillotine; they have recognised in you the one sole man, of all the nation, who can save France——’

The sick man smiled sadly, and laying his wasted fingers on Gerald’s arm, said, ‘It is not to be done!’

‘Do you mean, sir, that it is the will of the great Providence who rules us that this mighty people should sink under the tyranny of a few bloodthirsty wretches?’

‘I spoke not of France; I spoke of the Monarchy, said Mirabeau. ‘Look at those flowers there: in a few hours hence they will have lost their odour and their colour. Now, all your memory—be it ever so good—will not replace these to your senses. Go tell your master that his hour has struck. Monarchy was once a Faith; it will henceforth be but a Superstition.’

‘And is a just right like this to be abandoned?’

‘No. The stranger may place them on the throne they have lost; and if they be wise enough to repay the service with ingratitude, a few more years of this mock rule may be eked out.’

‘Would that I had power to tell you all our plans, and you the strength to listen to me!’ cried Gerald: ‘you would see that what they purpose is no puny enterprise; nor what they aim at, a selfish conquest.’

‘You came to me once before—I remember the incident well; I was living in the Avenue aux Abois when you summoned me to a meeting at St. Cloud. The Monarchy might have been saved even then. It was late, but not too late. I advised a ministry of such materials as the people might trust and the court corrupt—men of low origin, violent, exacting, but venal. Six months of such rule would have sent France back to all her ancient traditions, and the king been more popular than ever. But they would not hear me: they talked of walking in the high path of duty; and it has led some to the scaffold, and the rest to exile! But what concern have I with these things? Do you know, young man, that all your king could promise, all the mighty people themselves could bestow upon me as I lie here, could not equal the pleasure that moss-rose yields me, nor the ecstasy of delight I feel when a gentle wind blows fresh upon my cheek. Say it out, sir; say out what that supercilious smile implies,’ cried he, his eyes lighting up with all their ancient fire. ‘Tell me at once it was Mirabeau the voluptuary that spoke there! Ay, and I ‘ll not gainsay you! If to exult in the perfection of the senses nature has given me; to drink in with ecstasy what others imbibe in apathy; to feel a godlike enjoyment where less keenly gifted temperaments had scarcely known a pleasure—if this is to be a voluptuary, I am one.’

‘But why, with powers like yours, limit your enjoyment to mere sensual pleasures? Why not taste the higher and purer delight of succouring misfortune and defending the powerless?’

‘I did try it,’ said the sick man, sighing. ‘I essayed to discover the pleasures of what you would call morality. I was generous; I forgave injuries; I pardoned ingratitude; I aided struggling misery; but the reward was not forthcoming;—these things gave me no happiness.’

‘No happiness!’

‘None. I tried to forget I was a dupe; I did my best to believe myself a benefactor of my species; I stopped my ear against any praises from those I had befriended; but nothing in my heart responded to their joy. I was not happier. Remember, boy,’ cried he, ‘that even your own moralists only promise the recompense for virtue in another world. I looked for smaller profits and prompter payment. The mockery of his smile, as he spoke, seemed to wound Gerald; for, as he turned away his head, a deep flush covered his face. ‘Forgive me,’ said the sick man; ‘I ought to have remembered that your early training was derived from those worthy men, the Jesuit Fathers; and if I cannot participate in your consolations, I would not insult your convictions, Then, raising himself on one arm, he added, with a stronger effort: ‘Your mission to me is a failure, Fitzgerald. I cannot aid your cause: he whose trembling hand cannot carry the glass of water to his lips can scarce replace a fallen dynasty. I will not even deceive you by saying what, if health and strength were mine, I might do—perhaps I do not know it myself. Go back and tell your Prince that he and his must wait—wait like wise physicians—till nature bring the crisis of the malady; that all they could do now would but hurt the cause they mean to serve. When France needs her princes, she will seek them even out of exile. Let them beware how they destroy the prestige of their high estate by accepting equality meanwhile. They are the priests of a religion, and can never descend to the charges of the laity. As for you, yourself, it is well that I have seen you; I have long desired to speak to you of your own fortunes. I had written to Alfieri about you, and his answer—to you an important document—is in that box. You will find the key yonder on the ring.’

As Gerald rose to obey this direction, Mirabeau fell back exhausted on the bed, a clammy sweat breaking out over his cheeks and forehead. The cry which unconsciously escaped the youth, quickly summoned the ‘sister’ to the bedside.

‘This is death,’ said she, in the calm, solemn voice of one long inured to such scenes. She tried to make him swallow a teaspoonful of some restorative, but the liquid dropped over his lips, and fell upon his chin. ‘Death—and what a death!’ muttered the sister, half to herself.

‘See—see—he is coming back to himself,’ whispered Gerald; ‘his eyes are opening, and his lips move,’ while a faint effort of the muscles around the mouth seemed to essay a smile.

Again she moistened his lips with the cordial, and this time he was able to swallow some drops of it. He made a slight attempt to speak, and as the sister bent her ear to his lips, he whispered faintly, ‘Tell him to come back—tomorrow—to-morrow!’

She repeated the words to Gerald, who, feeling that his presence any longer there might be hurtful, slowly and silently stepped from the room, and descended to the street.

Late as it was, a considerable crowd was assembled before the door in front of the house; their attitude of silent and respectful anxiety showed the deep interest felt in the sick man’s state; and although no name was spoken, the frequent recurrence of the words ‘he’ and ‘his’ evinced how absorbingly all thoughts were concentrated upon one individual. Nor was it only of one class in society the crowd was composed. Mirabeau’s admirers and followers were of every rank and every section of politicians; and, strangely enough, men whose public animosities had set them widely apart from each other were here seen exchanging their last tidings of the sick-room, and alternating and balancing their hopes and fears of his condition.

‘Jostinard calls the malady cerebral absorption,’ said one, ‘as though intense application had produced an organic change.’

‘Lessieux holds that the disease was produced by those mercurial baths he used to take to stimulate him on occasions of great public display,’ said another.

‘There is reason to believe it a family complaint of some sort,’ broke in—a third; ‘the Bailli de Mirabeau sank under pure exhaustion, as if the machine had actually worn out.’

‘Pardie!’ cried out a rough-looking man in a working dress; ‘it is hard that we cannot repair him with the strong materials the useless fellows are made of; there are full fifty in the Assembly we could give for one like him.’

‘You talk of maladies,’ broke in a loud, full voice, ‘and I tell you that the Citizen Riquetti is dying of poison—ay, start, or murmur if you will—I repeat it, of poison. Do we not all know how his power is feared, and his eloquence dreaded? Are we strangers to those who hate this great and good man?’

‘Great and good he is,’ murmured another; ‘when shall we see his equal?’

‘See, here is one who has been lately with him; let us learn his news.’

This speech was uttered by a poorly-clad man, with a red cap on his head, as Gerald was endeavouring to pierce the crowd.

‘Who is the citizen who has this privilege of speaking with Gabriel Riquetti?’ said Cabrot, an over-dressed man, who stood the centre of a group of talkers.

Without paying any attention to this summons, Gerald tried to pursue his way and pass on; but several already barred the passage, and seemed to insist, as on a right, to hear the last account of the sick man. For a moment a haughty impulse to refuse all information thus demanded seemed to sway Gerald; then, suddenly changing his resolution, he calmly answered that Mirabeau appeared to him so ill as to preclude all hope of recovery, and that his state portended but few hours of life.

‘Ask him who he himself is?’—‘Why and how he came there?’—‘What medicine is Riquetti taking?’—‘Who administers it?’—‘Let this man give an account of himself!’ Such, and such like, were the cries that now resounded on all sides, and Gerald saw himself at once surrounded by a mob, whose demands were uttered in no doubtful tone.

‘The Citizen Riquetti is one whose life is dear to the Republic,’ broke in Cabrot; ‘all Frenchmen have a right to investigate whatever affects that life. Some aver that he is the victim of assassination——’

‘I say, and will maintain it, broke in the man who had made this assertion before; ‘they have given him some stuff that causes a gradual decay.’

‘Let this man declare himself. Who are you, Citizen, and whence?’ asked another, confronting Fitzgerald. ‘What business came you here to transact with the Citizen Riquetti?’

‘Have I asked you, or you or you,’ said Gerald, turning proudly from one to the other of those around him, ‘of your private affairs? Have I dared to interrogate you as to who you are, whence you came, whither you go? and by what presumption do you take this liberty with me?’

‘By that which a care of the public safety imposes,’ said Cabrot. ‘As Commissary of the fifth “arrondissement,” I demand this citizen’s name.’

‘You are right to be boastful of your liberty!’ said Gerald insolently, ‘when a man cannot walk the streets, nor even visit a dying friend, without submitting himself to the treatment of a criminal.’

‘He a friend of Gabriel Riquetti!’ burst in Cabrot. ‘Look, I beseech you, at the appearance of the man who gives himself this title.’

‘So, then, it is to my humble dress you object. Citizens, this speaks well for your fraternity and equality.’

‘You shall not evade a reckoning with us in this wise, said Cabrot. ‘Let us take him to the Corps du Garde, citizens.’

‘Ay! away with him to the Corps du Garde!’ cried several together.

Gerald became suddenly struck by the rashness of his momentary loss of temper, and quietly said, ‘I’ll not give you such trouble, citizens. What is it you wish to hear?’

‘Your compliance comes too late,’ said Cabrot; ‘we will do the thing in order; off with us to the Corps du Garde!’

‘I appeal to you all, why am I to be subjected to this insult?’ asked Gerald, addressing the crowd. ‘You deliver me to the Commissary, not for any crime or for any accusation of one; you compel me to speak about matters purely personal—circumstances which I could have no right to extort from any of you. Is this fair—is it just—is it decent?’

While he thus pleaded, the crowd was obliged to separate suddenly, and make way for a handsome equipage, which came up at full trot, and stopped before the door of Mirabeau’s house; and a murmur ran quickly around, ‘It is The Gabrielle come to ask after Riquetti’; and Cabrot, forgetting his part of public prosecutor, now approached the window of the carriage with an almost servile affectation of courtesy. Had Gerald been so disposed, nothing would have been easier for him than to make his escape in the diversion caused by this new incident, so eager was the crowd to press around and catch a glimpse of her whose gloved hand now rested on the door of the carriage.

‘She is Riquetti’s mistress,’ cried one; ‘is not she?’

‘Not a bit of it. Riquetti declared he would have no other mistress than France; and though she yonder changed her name to Gabrielle to flatter him, though she has sought and followed him for more than a year, it avails her nothing.’

‘Less than nothing I’d call it,’ said another, ‘since she pays for all those flowers that come up from the banks of the Var—the rarest roses and orange buds—just to please him.’

‘More than that too; she has paid all his debts—in Paris some six hundred thousand livres—all for a man who will not look at her.’

‘"That is to be a ‘veritable’ woman!”’ said a foppish-looking man, who was for some time endeavouring to attract the attention of the fair occupant of the carriage.

Meanwhile, Gerald had pressed his way through the crowd, curious to catch one look of her whose devotion seemed so romantic.

‘You see me in despair—in utter despair, Belle Gabrielle. There was no place to be had at the FranÇais last night, and I missed your glorious “PhÈdre.”’

Her reply was inaudible, but the other went on—

‘Of course, the effort must have cost you deeply, yet even in that counterfeit of another’s sorrow who knows if you did not interpolate some portion of your own grief!’

‘Is he better? Can I not see the Sister Constance,’ asked she, in a low and liquid voice.

‘He is no better; I believe he is far worse than yesterday. There was a young man here this moment who saw him, and whose interview, by the way, gave rise to grave speculation. There he is yonder—a strange-looking figure to call himself the friend of Gabriel Riquetti.’

‘Who or what is he?’ asked she eagerly.

‘It is what none of us know, though, indeed, at the moment you came up, we had some thoughts of compelling him to declare. Need I tell you that there is grave suspicion of foul play here; many are minded to believe that Mirabeau has been poisoned. See how that fellow continues to stare at you, Gabrielle. Do you know him?’

Step by step, slowly, but with eyes riveted upon the object before him, Gerald had now approached the carriage, and stood within a few yards of it, his eyeballs staring wildly, his lips apart, and every line of his face betraying the most intense astonishment. Nor was Gabrielle less moved: with her head protruded beyond the carriage-window, and her hair pushed suddenly back by some passing impulse, she gazed wildly at the stranger.

‘Gherardi, Gherardi mio!’ cried she at last. ‘Speak, and tell me if it be you.’

‘Marietta, oh, Marietta!’ said he, with a sigh, whose heartfelt cadence seemed eloquent in sorrow.

‘Come with me. Come home with me, and you shall hear all, said she, in Italian, answering as it were the accents of his words.

The young man shook his head mournfully in reply, but never spoke.

‘I tell you,’ cried she, more passionately, ‘that you shall hear all. It is more than I have said to a confessor. Come, come,’ and she flung open the door as she spoke.

‘If you but knew how I have longed to see you, Marietta!’ whispered he, in broken accents; ‘but not thus, oh, not thus!’

‘How, then, do you dare to judge me?’ cried she, with flashing eyes; ‘how presume to scoff at my affluence, while I have not dared to reflect upon your poverty? Once, and for the last time, I say, come with me!’

Without another word he sprang to her side, the door was closed, and the carriage drove rapidly away, ere the staring crowd could express their amazement at what they had witnessed.