Sprats and Saxonstowe worked hard for him at this time, one relieving him of much trouble in making the necessary arrangements for Haidee, the other of a large part of the business affairs brought into active operation by the recent tragedy. Saxonstowe, working untiringly on his behalf, was soon able to place Lucian’s affairs in order. Lucian gave him full power to act, and ere long had the satisfaction of knowing that the liability to Darlington and Darlington had been discharged, that Miss Pepperdine’s mind had been set at rest as to the preservation of the family honour, and that he owed money to no one. He would be able to surround the stricken Haidee with every comfort and luxury that one in her condition could enjoy, and he himself need never feel a moment’s anxiety. For the _affaire Damerel_ had had its uses. Lucian came again in the market. Mr. Robertson began to sell the thin green-clad volumes more rapidly than ever before; even the portly epic moved, and finally began racing its sister competitors for the favour of the fickle public. Mr. Harcourt, with a rare sense of fitness, revived Lucian’s first play to crowded houses; an enterprising Frenchman went over to London and witnessed a performance, and within a few weeks presented a version of it at one of the Parisian theatres. French translations of Lucian’s works followed, and sold like hot cakes; the Italian translations received a fillip, and people in the United States became interested. Nothing, said Mr. Robertson, could have been better, from a trade point of view. Lucian accepted all this with indifference and equanimity. All his thoughts were centred on the quiet house in the little village outside Paris, where Haidee laughed at her own fingers or played with dolls. Every afternoon he left his _appartement_ and travelled into the country to inquire after his wife’s health. He always carried some little gift with him--flowers, fruit, a child’s picture-book, a child’s toy, and the nurse to whom these things were given used to weep over them, being young and sentimental, and very much in love with Lucian’s face and hair, which was now turning a pretty and becoming grey at the temples. Sometimes he saw the doctor, who was sympathetic, and guarded in his answers, and sometimes he walked in the garden with an old abbé who used to visit the place, and exchanged pious sentiments with him. But he never saw Haidee, for the doctors feared it, and thus his conception of her was not of the madwoman, but of the young beauty with whom he had made an impetuous runaway marriage. He used to walk about Paris in those days with eyes that wore a far-away expression, and the women would speak of his beauty with tears in their eyes and shake their heads over the sadness of his story, which was well known to everybody, and in pecuniary value was worth a gold-mine. CHAPTER XXVIII