“Monsieur,” said the warder in an undertone to the Governor, coming close to him as he was escorting Doctor Lebrun as far as the outer gates of the Conciergerie, “Number 2 in the secret cells says he is ill, and needs the doctor; he declares he is dying,” added the turnkey.

“Indeed,” said the Governor.

“His breath rattles in his throat,” replied the man.

“It is five o’clock,” said the doctor; “I have had no dinner.  But, after all, I am at hand.  Come, let us see.”

“Number 2, as it happens, is the Spanish priest suspected of being Jacques Collin,” said Monsieur Gault to the doctor, “and one of the persons suspected of the crime in which that poor young man was implicated.”

“I saw him this morning,” replied the doctor.  “Monsieur Camusot sent for me to give evidence as to the state of the rascal’s health, and I may assure you that he is perfectly well, and could make a fortune by playing the part of Hercules in a troupe of athletes.”

“Perhaps he wants to kill himself too,” said Monsieur Gault.  “Let us both go down to the cells together, for I ought to go there if only to transfer him to an upper room.  Monsieur Camusot has given orders to mitigate this anonymous gentleman’s confinement.”

Jacques Collin, known as Trompe-la-Mort in the world of the hulks, who must henceforth be called only by his real name, had gone through terrible distress of mind since, after hearing Camusot’s order, he had been taken back to the underground cell—­an anguish such as he had never before known in the course of a life diversified by many crimes, by three escapes, and two sentences at the Assizes.  And is there not something monstrously fine in the dog-like attachment shown to the man he had made his friend by this wretch in whom were concentrated all the life, the powers, the spirit, and the passions of the hulks, who was, so to speak, their highest expression?

Wicked, infamous, and in so many ways horrible, this absolute worship of his idol makes him so truly interesting that this Study, long as it is already, would seem incomplete and cut short if the close of this criminal career did not come as a sequel to Lucien de Rubempre’s end.  The little spaniel being dead, we want to know whether his terrible playfellow the lion will live on.

In real life, in society, every event is so inevitably linked to other events, that one cannot occur without the rest.  The water of the great river forms a sort of fluid floor; not a wave, however rebellious, however high it may toss itself, but its powerful crest must sink to the level of the mass of waters, stronger by the momentum of its course than the revolt of the surges it bears with it.

And just as you watch the current flow, seeing in it a confused sheet of images, so perhaps you would like to measure the pressure exerted by social energy on the vortex called Vautrin; to see how far away the rebellious eddy will be carried ere it is lost, and what the end will be of this really diabolical man, human still by the power of loving —­so hardly can that heavenly grace perish, even in the most cankered heart.