Sacred and Profane Love eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 234 pages of information about Sacred and Profane Love.

Sacred and Profane Love eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 234 pages of information about Sacred and Profane Love.

He was somewhat sobered.  I said nothing, but I observed that the lamp was smoking, and I turned down the wick.  I was so self-conscious, so irresolute, so nonplussed, that in sheer awkwardness, like a girl at a party who does not know what to do with her hands, I pushed the revolver off the satchel, and idly unfastened the catch of the satchel.  Within it, among other things, was my sedative.  I, too, had fallen the victim of a habit.  For five years a bad sleeper, I had latterly developed into a very bad sleeper, and my sedative was accordingly strong.

A notion struck me.

‘Drink a little of this, my poor Diaz!’ I murmured.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘It will make you sleep,’ I said.

With a convulsive movement he clutched the bottle and uncorked it, and before I could interfere he had drunk nearly the whole of its contents.

‘Stop!’ I cried.  ‘You will kill yourself!’

‘What matter!’ he exclaimed; and staggered off to the darkness of the bedroom.

I followed him with the lamp, but he had already fallen on the bed, and seemed to be heavily asleep.  I shook him; he made no response.

‘At any cost he must he roused,’ I said aloud.  ’He must be forced to walk.’

There was a knocking at the outer door, low, discreet, and continuous.  It sounded to me like a deliverance.  Whoever might be there must aid me to waken Diaz.  I ran to the door, taking the key out of my pocket, and opened it.  A tall woman stood on the doormat.  It was the girl that I had glimpsed on the previous night in the large hat ascending the stairs with a man.  But now her bright golden head was uncovered, and she wore a blue peignoir, such as is sold ready made, with its lace and its ribbons, at all the big Paris shops.

We both hesitated.

‘Oh, pardon, madame,’ she said, in a thin, sweet voice in French.  ’I was at my door, and it seemed to me that I heard—­a revolver.  Nothing serious has passed, then?  Pardon, madame.’

‘Nothing, thank you.  You are very amiable, madame,’ I replied stiffly.

‘All my excuses, madame,’ said she, turning away.

‘No, no!’ I exclaimed.  ’I am wrong.  Do not go.  Someone is ill—­very ill.  If you would—­’

She entered.

‘Where?  What is it?’ she inquired.

‘He is in the bedroom—­here.’

We both spoke breathlessly, hurrying to the bedroom, after I had fetched the lamp.

‘Wounded?  He has done himself harm?  Ah!’

‘No,’ I said, ‘not that.’

And I explained to her that Diaz had taken at least six doses of my strong solution of trional.

I seized the lamp and held it aloft over the form of the sleeper, which lay on its side cross-wise, the feet projecting a little over the edge of the bed, the head bent forward and missing the pillow, the arms stretched out in front—­the very figure of abandoned and perfect unconsciousness.  And the girl and I stared at Diaz, our shoulders touching, in the kennel.

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Sacred and Profane Love from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.