I left for Nice the following evening, November 13th.

During my absence Reggie went every day to see Oscar, and wrote me short bulletins every other day.  Oscar went out several times with him driving, and seemed much better.  On Tuesday, November 27th, I received the first of Reggie’s letters, which I enclose (the others came after I had started), and I started back for Paris; I send them because they will give you a very good idea of how things stood.  I had decided that when I had moved my mother to Mentone on the following Friday, I would go to Paris on Saturday, but on the Wednesday evening, at five-thirty, I got a telegram from Reggie saying, “Almost hopeless.”  I just caught the express and arrived in Paris at 10.20 in the morning.  Dr. Tucker and Dr. Kleiss, a specialist called in by Reggie, were there.  They informed me that Oscar could not live for more than two days.  His appearance was very painful, he had become quite thin, the flesh was livid, his breathing heavy.  He was trying to speak.  He was conscious that people were in the room, and raised his hand when I asked him whether he understood.  He pressed our hands.  I then went in search of a priest, and after great difficulty found Father Cuthbert Dunn, of the Passionists, who came with me at once and administered Baptism and Extreme Unction—­Oscar could not take the Eucharist.  You know I had always promised to bring a priest to Oscar when he was dying, and I felt rather guilty that I had so often dissuaded him from becoming a Catholic, but you know my reasons for doing so.  I then sent wires to Frank Harris, to Holman (for communicating with Adrian Hope) and to Douglas.  Tucker called again later and said that Oscar might linger a few days.  A garde malade was requisitioned as the nurse had been rather overworked.

Terrible offices had to be carried out into which I need not enter.  Reggie was a perfect wreck.

He and I slept at the Hotel d’Alsace that night in a room upstairs.  We were called twice by the nurse, who thought Oscar was actually dying.  About 5.30 in the morning a complete change came over him, the lines of the face altered, and I believe what is called the death rattle began, but I had never heard anything like it before; it sounded like the horrible turning of a crank, and it never ceased until the end.  His eyes did not respond to the light test any longer.  Foam and blood came from his mouth, and had to be wiped away by someone standing by him all the time.  At 12 o’clock I went out to get some food, Reggie mounting guard.  He went out at 12.30.  From 1 o’clock we did not leave the room; the painful noise from the throat became louder and louder.  Reggie and myself destroyed letters to keep ourselves from breaking down.  The two nurses were out, and the proprietor of the hotel had come up to take their place; at 1.45 the time of his breathing altered.  I went to the bedside and held his hand, his pulse began to flutter.  He heaved a deep sigh, the only natural one I had heard since I arrived, the limbs seemed to stretch involuntarily, the breathing came fainter; he passed at 10 minutes to 2 p.m. exactly.