“There are no symptoms,” he replied, “except a gradual loss of vitality.  But examine me.”

I did so most carefully, testing the main organs, and subjecting him to a severe cross-examination.

“Well?” he said, as, after I had finished, I sat down to cogitate.

“Well, Monsieur Alresca, all I can say is that your fancy is too lively.  That is what you suffer from, an excitable fan—­”

“Stay, my friend,” he interrupted me with a firm gesture.  “Before you go any further, let me entreat you to be frank.  Without absolute candor nothing can be done.  I think I am a tolerable judge of faces, and I can read in yours the fact that my condition has puzzled you.”

I paused, taken aback.  It had puzzled me.  I thought of all that Rosetta Rosa had said, and I hesitated.  Then I made up my mind.

“I yield,” I responded.  “You are not an ordinary man, and it was absurd of me to treat you as one.  Absolute candor is, as you say, essential, and so I’ll confess that your case does puzzle me.  There is no organic disease, but there is a quite unaccountable organic weakness—­a weakness which fifty broken thighs would not explain.  I must observe, and endeavor to discover the cause.  In the meantime I have only one piece of advice.  You know that in certain cases we have to tell women patients that a successful issue depends on their own willpower:  I say the same thing to you.”

“Receive my thanks,” he said.  “You have acted as I hoped.  As for the willpower, that is another matter,” and a faint smile crossed his handsome, melancholy face.

I rose to leave.  It was nearly three o’clock.

“Give me a few moments longer.  I have a favor to ask.”

After speaking these words he closed his eyes, as though to recall the opening sentences of a carefully prepared speech.

“I am entirely at your service,” I murmured.

“Mr. Foster,” he began, “you are a young man of brilliant accomplishments, at the commencement of your career.  Doubtless you have made your plans for the immediate future, and I feel quite sure that those plans do not include any special attendance upon myself, whom until the other day you had never met.  I am a stranger to you, and on the part of a stranger it would be presumptuous to ask you to alter your plans.  Nevertheless, I am at this moment capable of that presumption.  In my life I have not often made requests, but such requests as I have made have never been refused.  I hope that my good fortune in this respect may continue.  Mr. Foster, I wish to leave England.  I wish to die in my own place—­”

I shrugged my shoulders in protest against the word “die.”

“If you prefer it, I wish to live in my own place.  Will you accompany me as companion?  I am convinced that we should suit each other—­that I should derive benefit from your skill and pleasure from your society, while you—­you would tolerate the whims and eccentricities of my middle age.  We need not discuss terms; you would merely name your fee.”