Du courage, Saint-Cyr,’ he whispered. `She has gone . . . first.’  The kindly words meant that the separation would not be for long.  The woman in charge by the couch of the dead girl wept aloud, but there were no tears yet in the eyes of Georges. `And the child?’ he asked at length, vaguely comprehending what had happened.  They lifted the sheet gently, and showed him a little white corpse lying beside its mother.  ‘I am glad the child is dead, too,’ said Georges Saint-Cyr.

“He would not have her buried by the Mediterranean;—­no—­nor would he let the corpse be taken home for burial.  The desire for flight was upon him, and he said he must carry his dead with him till be himself should die.  That night he left Monte Carlo for Rome, bearing with him those dear remains of wife and child; and the good doctor seeing his desperation and full of pity for so vast a woe, went with him.  ‘Perhaps,’ he told me, `had I not gone, Georges would not himself have reached Rome alive.’  They traveled night and day, for the young man would not rest an instant.  His design was to have the body of his wife burned in the crematorium of the Eternal City, and Dr S. was, fortunately, able to obtain for him the fulfilment of his desire.  Then Saint-Cyr enclosed the ashes of his beloved in a little silver box, slung it about his neck and bade his friend farewell.  I asked the doctor where he went. `Northward,’ he answered, `but I did not ask his plans.  He gave me no address; he had money in plenty, and it matters little where he went, for death was in his face as he wrung my hand at parting, and he cannot live to see the summer out.”

That was the end of the letter.  And for my part, with the sole exception of Georges Saint-Cyr, I never heard of any man who became rich over the tables of Monte Carlo.

V. Noemi; or, the Silver Ribbon

I.

I have often heard practising physicians and students of pathology assert that no one ever died of “a broken heart,”—­that is, of course, in the popular sense of the phrase.  Rupture of the heart, such as that which killed the passionate tyrant John of Muscovy, is a rare accident, and has no connection with the mental trouble and strain implied in the common expression “heart-breaking.”  I have, however, my own theory upon this question,—­a theory founded on some tolerably strong evidence which might serve more scientifically-minded persons than myself as a text for a medical thesis; but, as for me, I am no writer of theses, and had much ado to get honestly through the only production of the sort which ever issued from my pen, my These de Doctorat.  For I studied the divine art of AEsculapius at the Ecole de Medicine of Paris, and it was there, just before taking my degree, that I became involved in a singular little history, the circumstances of which first led me to adopt my present views on the subject alluded to in the opening words of this story.