in the dark haze which began to float before his eyes he saw women’s faces, some beautiful, some devilish, yet all familiar,—­he felt himself sinking—­sinking into some deep abyss of shadows, so dark and dreary that he shuddered with the icy cold and horror, till Sylvie came, yes!—­Sylvie’s soft eyes shone upon him, full of the pity and tenderness of some divine angel near God’s throne,—­an angel of sweetness—­an angel of forgiveness—­ah!—­ so sweet she was, so childlike, so trusting, so fair, so enticing in those exquisite ways of hers which had pleaded with him, prayed to him, tried to draw him back from evil, and incite him to noble thought; “ways” that would have persuaded him to cleanse his flag of honour from the mud of social vice and folly, and lift it to the heavens white and pure!  Ah, sweet ways!—­sweet voice!—­sweet woman!- -sweet possibilities of life now gone forever!  Again that sinking,—­ that icy chill!  His eyes were closing—­yet he forced himself to open them as he sank back heavily on the turf, and then—­then he saw the great white moon descending on him as it seemed, like a shield of silver flung down to crush him, by some angry god!

“Sylvie!—­Sylvie!” he muttered, “I never knew—­how much I loved you--till-now!  Sylvie!”

His eyes closed—­a little smile flickered on his mouth for a moment--and then the Shadow fell.  And he lay stark and pallid in the moonlight, close to the brother he had never known till the last hour of life had revealed the bond of blood between them.  Side by side they lay,—­strangely alike in death,—­men to whom the possibilities of noble living had been abundantly given, and who had wasted all their substance on vanity.  For Victor Miraudin, despite his genius and the brilliancy of his art, was not likely to be longer remembered or mourned than the Marquis Fontenelle.  The fame of the actor is even less than that of the great noble,—­the actor’s name is but a bubble on the air which a breath disperses,—­and the heir to a proud house is only remembered by the flattering inscription on his tombstone.  Forgotten Caesars, greater than any living monarch, had mixed their bones with the soil where these two sons of one father lay dead,—­the bright moon was their sanctuary lamp,—­the stars their funeral torches,—­the width of the Campagna their bier, and the heavens their pall.  And when the two terrified witnesses of the fatal fight realised the position, and saw that both combatants had truly perished, there were no regrets, no lamentations, no prayers, no thought of going for assistance.  With the one selfish idea uppermost,—­that of escaping immediate trouble--Jeanne Richaud rallied her scattered wits, and dragging the praying and gesticulating cab-driver up from his knees, she bade him mount his box and drive her back to the city.  Tremblingly he prepared to obey, but not without unfastening the horse which the dead Marquis had so lately ridden, and taking some trouble to attach it to his vehicle for his own uses.