Among the frequenters of the Prince Frederick there was one who at this time was to be seen there almost nightly. He was a man of about five-and-twenty, tall, broad-shouldered, with strongly-marked features and the eye of a hawk; a man whose clothes were well worn, and whose whole appearance was slovenly, yet who looked like a gentleman; evidently uncared for, possibly destitute, but however low he might have sunk, a gentleman still. He was a medical student, and one of the hardest workers at St. Thomas’s--a man who had chosen his profession because he loved it, and whose love increased with his labour. Those who knew most about him said that he was a man destined to make his mark upon the age in which he lived. But he was not a man to achieve rapid success, to distinguish himself by a happy accident. He went slowly to work, sounded the bottom of every well, took up every subject as resolutely as if it were the one subject he had chosen for his especial study, flung himself into every scientific question with the feverish ardour of a lover, yet worked with the steadiness and self-denial of a Greek athlete. For all the vulgar pleasures of life, for wine or play, for horse-racing, or riot of any kind, this young surgeon cared not a jot. He was so little a haunter of theatres, that those of his fellow-students who recognised him night after night at the Prince Frederick were surprised at his frequent presence in such a place. ‘What has come to Gerard?’ cried Joe Latimer, of Guy’s, to Harry Brown, of St. Thomas’s. ‘I thought he despised ballet-dancing. Yet this is the third time I have seen him looking on at this rot, with his attention as fixed as if he were watching Paget using the knife?’ ‘Can’t you guess what it all means?’ exclaimed Brown. ‘Gerard is in love.’ ‘In love!’ ‘Yes, over head and ears in love with La Chicot--never saw such a well-marked case--all the symptoms beautifully developed--sits in the front row of the pit and gazes the whole time she is on the stage--never takes his eyes off her--raves about her to our fellows--the loveliest woman that ever lived since the unknown young person who served as a model for the Venus that was dug up in a cave in the island of Milo. Fancy having known that young woman, and put your arm round her waist! Somebody did, I dare say. Yes, George Gerard is gone--annihilated. It’s too pathetic.’ ‘And Mademoiselle Chicot is a married woman, I hear?’ said Latimer. ‘Very much married. The husband is always in attendance upon her. Waits for her at the stage door every night, or stands at the wing while she dances. La Chicot is a most correct person, though she hardly looks it. Ah! here comes Gerard. Well, old fellow, has the disease reached its crisis?’ ‘What disease?’ asked Gerard, curtly. ‘The fever called love.’ ‘Do you suppose I’m in love with the new dancer, because I drop in here pretty often to look at her?’