A dejected man, M. le docteur Maurice Fournier locked the door of his physiological laboratory in the Place de l'École de Médecine, and walked away toward his rooms in the rue Rossini. At two-and-thirty, rich, brilliant, an ambitious graduate of l'École de Médecine, an enthusiastic pupil of Claude Bernard's, a devoted lover of science, and above all of physiology, yesterday he was without a care save to make his name great among the great names of science--to win for himself a place in the foremost rank of the followers of that mistress whom only he loved and worshiped. To-day a word had swept away all his fondest hopes. Trousseau, the keenest observer in all Paris, formerly his father's friend, now no less his own, had kindly but firmly called his attention to himself, and to the malady that had so imperceptibly and insidiously fastened itself upon him that until the moment he never dreamed of its approach. He had been too full of his work to think of himself. In any other case he would scarcely have dared to dispute the opinion of the highest medical authority in Europe; nevertheless in his own he began to argue the matter: "But, my dear doctor, I am well." "No, my friend, you are not. You are thin and pale, and I noticed the other night, when you came late to the meeting of the Institute, that your breathing was quick and labored, and that the reading of your excellent paper was frequently interrupted by a short cough." "That was nothing. I was hurried and excited, and I have been keeping myself too closely to my work. A run to Dunkerque, a week of rest and sea-air, will make all right again." But the great man shook his head gravely: "Not weeks, but years, of a different life are needed. You must give up the laboratory altogether if you want to live. Remember your mother's fate and your father's early death--think of the deadly blight that fell so soon upon the rare beauty of your sister. Some day you will realize your danger: realize it now, in time. Close your laboratory, lock up your library, say adieu to Paris, and lead the life of a traveler, an Arab, a Tartar. For the present cease to dream of the future: strength is better than a professorship in the College of France, and health more than the cross of the Legion of Honor." Fournier was at first surprised and incredulous: he became convinced, then alarmed. After some thought he was horribly dejected. At such a time an Englishman becomes stolid, a German gives up utterly, an American begins to live fast, since he may not live long; but he, being a Frenchman and a Parisian, had alternations--first, the idea of suicide, which means sleep; second, reaction, which is hopefulness.