"Never mind. So has he. Take off the overcoat. There, that is better. This is the loft. Lavirotte, are you awake?" "Yes, more wakeful than I have been for many a day. God bless you, Eugene, for coming. I have not much time now. I am waiting for the call. Eugene, do you hear the boy call?" "No, no, Dominique, my dear friend. Keep yourself quiet, and you will hear the boy call when you have had a few days' rest, when you come back from the sea." Eugene, in his stage costume, crossed the floor, and bending over his old friend, who lay pallid on the couch, in his stage costume, sat by his side and took Dominique's hand in his. "I am not going to the sea, Eugene. I am going to the Ocean. Bear with me a little while." Jephson drew back, and stood beside the ladder which led to the loft above. "Bear with me, Eugene. I have a confession to make. Do not interrupt me. Excitement gives me pain now. You have come to me in the deepest depth of your own affliction to say a kind word to me in my last moments. You have lost your boy." "All hope is not yet gone." "You have lost your boy, and you have come to touch the hand of Dominique, while yet it can be conscious of that touch. You have come to close my eyes for ever." "My dear, dear Dominique!" "Do not interrupt me. I have a confession to make. I have been jealous of you all my life, ever since I knew you. I need not tell you all that you already know. I have plotted against you with devilish cunning, cunning too deep and despicable for you ever to suspect. I could not bear that you should sing the part. I swore you never should. I took care you should not sing the part. Let me tell you what happened after I left the theatre. I came here. I then looked calm. But I was mad. I had money in my pocket, and I bribed a wretch even almost as vile as myself to decoy the nurse of your child away from your house. "I was close by when this was done. A few minutes after, your house was discovered in flames. I brought you word at the theatre that your house was burning, and nothing was known of your boy." "Oh God! Oh God! Dominique! And while the woman was away the child overturned the lamp, and he is dead!" "Yes, Eugene, I do not wonder at your starting away from me. But hear me out. Hear me to the end. The boy did not overturn the lamp.... _I_ overturned the lamp." "_You!_ _You!_ Which of us is mad? If I am sane, why should I not strangle you as you lie?" Eugene was now at the other side of the table, leaning on it, and looking stupidly at the prostrate man. "Because, Eugene, I asked you to hear me out, and the last wish of a dying man is sacred." "Dying _man!_ Dying monster! Dying murderer! Where is my child?" For an instant Lavirotte's hand moved under the couch on which he lay. He suddenly raised it. There was a flash, a loud report, that seemed to shake the walls of the tower. Jephson sprang from where he stood. O'Donnell never moved.