With a strange mixture of wild anguish and fierce joy, he looked at the magic skin to see what this vehement wish had cost him.  Nothing!  Not a sign of shrinkage could be discerned.  The fact was that even the greatest talisman could not realise a desire which had long since been fulfilled.  Pauline had loved Raphael from the time when they first met; while he had been priding himself on living on twelve pounds a year, she had been painting screens up to two or three o’clock every night, in order to buy him food and firing.

“Oh, my simple-minded darling,” she said to him the next day, sitting on his lap and twining her arms about his neck, “you will never know what a pleasure it was for me to pay my handsome tutor for all his kindness.  And wasn’t I cunning?  You never found me out.”

“But I’ve found out now,” said Raphael, “and I am going to punish you severely.  Instead of marrying you in three months’ time, as you suggest, I shall marry you at the end of this week.”

Raphael was now the happiest man in Paris.  Seeing that the magic skin had not shrunk with his last wish, he thought that the spell over his life was removed.  And that morning he had thrown the talisman down a disused well in the garden.

At the end of the week, Pauline was sitting at breakfast with Raphael in the conservatory overlooking the garden.  She was wearing a light dressing-gown; her long hair was all dishevelled, and her little, white, blue-veined feet peeped out of their velvet slippers.  She gave a little cry of dismay, when the gardener appeared.

“I’ve just found this strange thing at the bottom of one of the wells,” he said.

He gave Raphael the magic skin.  It was now scarcely as large as a rose leaf.

“Leave me, Pauline!  Leave me at once!” cried Raphael.  “If you remain I shall die before your eyes.”

“Die?” she said.  “Die?  You cannot.  I love you—­I love you!”

“Yes, die!” he exclaimed, showing her the little bit of skin.  “Look, dearest.  This is a talisman which represents the length of my life, and accomplishes my wishes.  You see how little is left.”

Pauline thought he had suddenly grown mad.  She bent over him, and took up the magic skin.  As Raphael saw her, beautiful with love and terror, he lost all control over his desires.  To possess her again, and die on her breast!

“Come to me Pauline!” he said.

She felt the skin tickling her hand as it rapidly shrivelled up.  She rushed into the bedroom, and closed the door.

“Pauline!  Pauline!” cried the dying man, stumbling after her.  “I love you!  I want you!  I wish to die for you!”

With extraordinary strength—­the last outburst of life—­he tore the door off the hinges, and saw Pauline in agony on a sofa.  She had stabbed herself.

“If I die, he will live!” she was crying.

Raphael staggered across the room, and fell into the arms of beautiful Pauline, dead.