“The agony has begun,” he said mournfully.  “It is only a matter of hours.”

And as Jansoulet came towards him, he said to him emphatically: 

“Ah, my friend, what a man!  What courage!  He has forgotten nobody.  Only just now he was speaking to me of you.”

“Really?”

“‘The poor Nabob,’ said he, ’how does the affair of his election stand?’”

And that was all.  The duke had added no further word.

Jansoulet bowed his head.  What had he been hoping?  Was it not enough that at such a moment a man like Mora had given him a thought?  He returned and sat down on his bench, falling back into the stupor which had been galvanized by one moment of mad hope, and remained until, without his noticing it, the hall had become nearly deserted.  He did not remark that he was the only and last visitor left, until he heard the men-servants talking aloud in the waning light of the evening: 

“For my part, I’ve had enough of it.  I shall leave service.”

“I shall stay on with the duchess.”

And these projects, these arrangements some hours in advance of death, condemned the noble duke still more surely than the faculty.

The Nabob understood then that it was time for him to go, but, first, he wished to inscribe his name in the visitors’ book kept by the porter.  He went up to the table, and leaned over it to see distinctly.  The page was full.  A blank space was pointed out to him below a signature in a very small, spidery hand, such as is frequently written by very fat fingers, and when he had signed, it proved to be the name of Hemerlingue dominating his own, crushing it, clasping it round with insidious flourish.  Superstitious, like the true Latin he was, he was struck by this omen, and went away frightened by it.

Where should he dine?  At the club?  Place Vendome?  To hear still more talk of this death that obsessed him!  He preferred to go somewhere by chance, walking straight before him, like all those who are a prey to some fixed idea which they hope to conjure away by rapid movement.  The evening was warm, the air full of sweet scents.  He walked along the quays, and reached the trees of the Cours-la-Reine, then found himself breathing that air in which is mingled the freshness of watered roads and the odour of fine dust so characteristic of summer evenings in Paris.  At that hour all was deserted.  Here and there chandeliers were being lighted for the concerts, blazes of gaslight flared among the green trees.  A sound of glasses and plates from a restaurant gave him the idea of going in.