were condensed and vivid.  The misshapen, ill-clad child of his brain had returned to him as a lovely maiden, with white robes and rosy-hued girdle and scarf—­an entrancing creation.  Night fell and took him by surprise, reading through rising tears, stricken to earth by such greatness of soul, feeling the worth of such a lesson, admiring the alterations, which taught him more of literature and art than all his four years’ apprenticeship of study and reading and comparison.  A master’s correction of a line made upon the study always teaches more than all the theories and criticisms in the world.

“What friends are these!  What hearts!  How fortunate I am!” he cried, grasping his manuscript tightly.

With the quick impulsiveness of a poetic and mobile temperament, he rushed off to Daniel’s lodging.  As he climbed the stairs, and thought of these friends, who refused to leave the path of honor, he felt conscious that he was less worthy of them than before.  A voice spoke within him, telling him that if d’Arthez had loved Coralie, he would have had her break with Camusot.  And, besides this, he knew that the brotherhood held journalism in utter abhorrence, and that he himself was already, to some small extent, a journalist.  All of them, except Meyraux, who had just gone out, were in d’Arthez’s room when he entered it, and saw that all their faces were full of sorrow and despair.

“What is it?” he cried.

“We have just heard news of a dreadful catastrophe; the greatest thinker of the age, our most loved friend, who was like a light among us for two years——­”

“Louis Lambert!”

“Has fallen a victim to catalepsy.  There is no hope for him,” said Bianchon.

“He will die, his soul wandering in the skies, his body unconscious on earth,” said Michel Chrestien solemnly.

“He will die as he lived,” said d’Arthez.

“Love fell like a firebrand in the vast empire of his brain and burned him away,” said Leon Giraud.

“Yes,” said Joseph Bridau, “he has reached a height that we cannot so much as see.”

“We are to be pitied, not Louis,” said Fulgence Ridal.

“Perhaps he will recover,” exclaimed Lucien.

“From what Meyraux has been telling us, recovery seems impossible,” answered Bianchon.  “Medicine has no power over the change that is working in his brain.”

“Yet there are physical means,” said d’Arthez.

“Yes,” said Bianchon; “we might produce imbecility instead of catalepsy.”

“Is there no way of offering another head to the spirit of evil?  I would give mine to save him!” cried Michel Chrestien.

“And what would become of European federation?” asked d’Arthez.

“Ah! true,” replied Michel Chrestien.  “Our duty to Humanity comes first; to one man afterwards.”

“I came here with a heart full of gratitude to you all,” said Lucien.  “You have changed my alloy into golden coin.”