“More than any other poet that has lived,” he replied.  “His was the most ethereal and delicate muse that ever consented to be tied down to earth.  But, mademoiselle, you do not wish to examine me as to my taste in poetry.  You have some other questions to put to me, have you not?”

For one instant I hesitated.  Then I spoke out frankly, and answered: 

“Yes, signor.  What was there in that wine you gave me this morning?”

He met my searching gaze unflinchingly.

“A medicine,” he said.  “An excellent and perfectly simple remedy made of the juice of plants, and absolutely harmless.”

“But why,” I demanded, “why did you give me this medicine?  Was it not wrong to take so much responsibility upon yourself?”

He smiled.

“I think not.  If you are injured or offended, then I was wrong; but if, on the contrary, your health and spirits are ever so little improved, as I see they are, I deserve your thanks, mademoiselle.”

And he waited with an air of satisfaction and expectancy.  I was puzzled and half-angry, yet I could not help acknowledging to myself that I felt better and more cheerful than I had done for many months.  I looked up at the artist’s dark, intelligent face, and said almost humbly: 

“I do thank you, signor.  But surely you will tell me your reasons for constituting yourself my physician without even asking my leave.”

He laughed, and his eyes looked very friendly.

“Mademoiselle, I am one of those strangely constituted beings who cannot bear to see any innocent thing suffer.  It matters not whether it be a worm in the dust, a butterfly in the air, a bird, a flower, or a human creature.  The first time I saw you I knew that your state of health precluded you from the enjoyment of life natural to your sex and age.  I also perceived that the physicians had been at work upon you trying to probe into the causes of your ailment, and that they had signally failed.  Physicians, mademoiselle, are very clever and estimable men, and there are a few things which come within the limit of their treatment; but there are also other things which baffle their utmost profundity of knowledge.  One of these is that wondrous piece of human machinery, the nervous system; that intricate and delicate network of fine threads—­electric wires on which run the messages of thought, impulse, affection, emotion.  If these threads or wires become, from any subtle cause, entangled, the skill of the mere medical practitioner is of no avail to undo the injurious knot, or to unravel the confused skein.  The drugs generally used in such cases are, for the most part, repellent to the human blood and natural instinct, therefore they are always dangerous, and often deadly.  I knew, by studying your face, mademoiselle, that you were suffering as acutely as I, too, suffered some five years ago, and I ventured to try upon you a simple vegetable essence, merely to see if you were capable of benefiting by it.  The experiment has been so far successful; but——­”