Doctor. We will call this learned man, Dr.
Bertrand. He was a man of striking and rather
agreeable appearance, with a fine portly figure,
and a handsome and strikingly intelligent face;
his age was somewhere between forty and fifty;
but there was one characteristic about his
countenance, which every one who came in contact
with him must have felt, though not all would
have been able to explain what it was that
affected them. His eyes were dead. They
never changed, and they rarely moved. The rest
of his face was as mobile as the faces of other
people in the average, but not so with the eyes.
They were of a dull leaden colour, and they
actually seemed dead: the idea being further
carried out by the livid and unwholesome tints
of the skin around those organs. Judged from
its hues, the skin might have mortified.

Dr. Bertrand, in spite of his dead eyes, was
a personage of cheerful, almost gay, manners,
and of an unvarying and amazing politeness.
Nothing ever put him out. He was also a man
surrounded by impenetrable mystery. It was
impossible to get at him, or to break down the
barriers which his politeness erected around
him. Dr. Bertrand had made many discoveries
by which the scientific world had profited. He
was a rich man, and his pecuniary means had
increased lately in a marked degree. The Doctor
made no secret of his resources; it was part of
his nature to enjoy luxury and splendour, and
he lived in both. His house, an hotel of moderate
size in the Rue Mauconseil, enclosed in a
court-yard of its own, filled with shrubs and
flowers, was a model of taste. His dining-room
especially was the realised ideal of what such
an apartment should be. Pictures, beautiful
pictures—not pieces of wall furniture—decorated
the walls, and these were lighted up at night in
the most artful manner by lamps of enormous
power. The floor was padded with the most
splendid Persian carpets, the curtains and chairs
were of the finest Utrecht velvet, and, in a
conservatory outside, always heated to the most
luxurious point, a fountain played perpetually:
the light trickling of its water making music in
the beautiful place.

And well might Dr. Bertrand have so perfect
a dining-room in his house. To give dinners
was a great part of Dr. Bertrand's business. In
certain circles those dinners were highly
celebrated, but they were always talked about under
the rose. It was whispered that their splendour
was fabulous; that the dishes and the wines
reached a point of perfection absolutely
unknown elsewhere; that the guests were waited
upon by servants who knew their business,
which is saying much; that they dined seated
upon velvet fauteuils, and ate from golden
plates; and it was said, moreover, that Dr.
Bertrand entered into the spirit of the times,
that he was a mighty and experienced chemist,
and that it was an understood thing that Dr.
Bertrand's guests did not feel life to be all they
could wish, and had no desire to survive the
night which succeeded their acceptance of his
graceful hospitality.

Strange and intolerable imputation! Who
could live under it? The Doctor could
apparently. For he not only lived but throve and
prospered under it.

It was a delicate and dainty way of getting
out of the difficulties of life, this provided by
Dr. Bertrand. You dined in a style of unwonted
luxury, and you enjoyed excellent company, the
Doctor himself the very best of company. You
felt no uneasiness or pain, for the Doctor knew
his business better than that; you went home
feeling a little drowsy perhaps, just enough so
to make your bed seem delightful; you went
off to sleep instantly—the Doctor knew to a
minute how to time it all—and you woke up in
the Elysian Fields. At least that was where
you expected to wake up. That, by-the- by,
was the only part of the programme which the
Doctor could not make sure of.

Now, there arrived at Dr. Bertrand's house
one morning, a letter from a young gentleman
named De Clerval, in which an application was
made, that the writer might be allowed to
partake of the Doctor's hospitality next day. This
was the usual form observed, and (as was also
usual) a very handsome fee accompanied the
letter. A polite answer was returned in due
time, enclosing a card of invitation for the
following day, and intimating how much the Doctor
looked forward to the pleasure of making
Monsieur de Clerval's acquaintance.

A dull rainy day at the end of November,
was not a day calculated to reconcile to life
any one previously disapproving of the same.
Everything was dripping. The trees in the
Champs Elysées, the eaves of the sentry-boxes,
the umbrellas of those who were provided with
those luxuries, the hats of those who were
not; all were dripping. Indeed, dripping was
so entirely a characteristic of the day, that the
Doctor, with that fine tact and knowledge of
human nature which distinguished him, had, in
arranging the evening programme, given orders
that the conservatory fountain should be stopped,
lest it should affect the spirits of his guests.
Dr. Bertrand was always very particular that
the spirits of his guests should not be damped.

Alfred de Clerval was something of an
exception to the Doctor's usual class of visitors.
ln his case it was not ennui, nor weariness of
life, nor a longing for sensation, that made him
one of the Doctor's guests. It was a mixture of
pique and vexation, with a real conviction that
what he had set his heart upon, as alone capable
of bringing him happiness, was out of his reach.
He was of a rash impetuous nature, he believed
that all his chance of happiness was gone for life,
and he determined to quit life. Two great causes
ordinarily brought grist to Dr. Bertrand's mill;
money troubles, and love troubles. De Clerval's
difficulties were of the latter description. He
was in a fever of love and jealousy. He was,
and had been for some time, the devoted lover
of Mademoiselle Thérèse de Farelles: a noted
beauty of that day. All had gone smoothly for
a time, until a certain Vicomte de Noel, a cousin
of the lady's, appeared upon the scene, and Alfred