Even Dr. Cheron noticed it, and calling me in the afternoon to his private room, said:—­

“Basil Arbuthnot, you look ill.  Are you working too hard?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“Humph!  Are you out much at night?”

“Out, sir?”

“Yes—­don’t echo my words—­do you go into society:  frequent balls, theatres, and so forth?”

“I have not done so, sir, for several months past.”

“What is it, then?  Do you read late?”

“Really, sir, I hardly know—­up to about one or two o’clock; on the average, I believe.”

“Let me feel your pulse.”

I put out my wrist, and he held it for some seconds, looking keenly at me all the time.

“Got anything on your mind?” he asked, after he had dropped it again.  “Want money, eh?”

“No, sir, thank you.”

“Home-sick?”

“Not in the least.”

“Hah! want amusement.  Can’t work perpetually—­not reasonable to suppose it.  There, mon garcon,” (taking a folded paper from his pocket-book) “there’s a prescription for you.  Make the most of it.”

It was a stall-ticket for the opera.  Too restless and unhappy to reject any chance of relief, however temporary, I accepted it, and went.

I had not been to a theatre since that night with Josephine, nor to the Italian Opera since I used to go with Madame de Marignan.  As I went in listlessly and took my place, the lights, the noise, the multitude of faces, confused and dazzled me.  Presently the curtain rose, and the piece began.  The opera was I Capuletti.  I do not remember who the singers were, I am not sure that I ever knew.  To me they were Romeo and Juliet, and I was a dweller in Verona.  The story, the music, the scenery, took a vivid hold upon my imagination.  From the moment the curtain rose, I saw only the stage, and, except that I in some sort established a dim comparison between Romeo’s sorrows and my own disquietude of mind, I seemed to lose all recollection of time and place, and almost of my own identity.

It seemed quite natural that that ill-fated pair of lovers should go through life, love, wed, and die singing.  And why not?  Are they not airy nothings, “born of romance, cradled in poetry, thinking other thoughts, and doing other deeds than ours?” As they live in poetry, so may they not with perfect fitness speak in song?

I went home in a dream, with the melodies ringing in my ears and the story lying heavy at my heart.  I passed upstairs in the dark, went over to the window, and saw, oh joy! the light—­the dear, familiar, welcome, blessed light, streaming forth, as of old, from Hortense’s chamber window!

To thank Heaven that she was safe was my first impulse—­to step out on the balcony, and watch the light as though it were a part of herself, was the second.  I had not been there many moments when it was obscured by a passing shadow.  The window opened and she came out.