"Oh!" continued Jacques Ferrand, still half stretched on the floor, and supporting himself by one hand, "the demon vanishes. I am going to church--I am a holy man--I pray! What, no one will know it? Do you think so? No, no, tempter--be quite sure! Well, let them come--these women--all! Yes, all--if no one finds it out! But the secret!" he continued, in a tone of exhaustion, "the secret! Ah, here they are! Three! What says this one?--I am Louise Morel! Oh, yes--Louise Morel; I know it! I am only one of the people! You think me handsome? Here--take her! What does she bring me?--her head cut off by the executioner! It looks at me, that head of death! It speaks! The livid lips move and say, 'Come--come--come!' I will not--I will not! Demon, leave me! Go--go--go! And this other woman?--ah, beautiful, beautiful!--Jacques, I am the Duchesse de Lucenay. See my angelic figure,--my smile,--my bold glance! Come, come! Yes, I come. But wait! And who is this one who turns away her face? Oh, Cecily--Cecily! Yes, Jacques, 'tis Cecily! You see the three Graces,--Louise, the duchess, and myself. Choose! Beauty of the people, patrician beauty, the savage beauty of the tropics,--and hell with us! Come--come! Hell with you? Yes!" shrieked Jacques Ferrand, again rising on his knees, and extending his arms to seize these phantoms. This last effort was followed by a mortal throe, and he fell back again stiff and lifeless; his eyes starting from their orbits, whilst fierce convulsions were visible on his features, unnaturally distorted; a bloody foam on his lips; his voice hoarse and strangling, like that of a person in hydrophobia, for, in its last paroxysm, this fearful malady shows the same symptoms as madness. The breath of this monster was extinguished in the midst of a final and horrible vision, for he stammered forth these words, "Black night!--black spectres!--skeletons of brass, red-hot with fire! Unfold me! Their burning fingers make my flesh smoke; my marrow is scorched! Fleshless, horrid spectre! No--no! Cecily--fire--flame--agony--Cecily!" These were Jacques Ferrand's last words, and Rodolph left the place overcome with horror. CHAPTER IV. THE HOSPITAL. It will be remembered that Fleur-de-Marie, saved by La Louve, had been conveyed not far from the Isle du Ravageur to the country-house of Doctor Griffon, one of the surgeons of the hospital, to whom we shall now introduce the reader. This learned doctor, who had obtained from high influence his position in the hospital, considered the wards as a kind of school of experiments, where he tried on the poor the remedies and applications which he afterwards used with his rich clients.