"Yes, indeed, it is fatal; you are quite right, Master Nostredame," said Aloyse; with a sigh. "God grant that he recover from his passion as well as from his illness, Dame Aloyse! if indeed illness and passion haven't always the same cause and the same effect. But I will answer for the one, and not for the other." Nostradamus opened the soft and apparently lifeless hand that he held in his, and looked very carefully and attentively at the palm; he even lifted the skin from the fore and middle fingers. He seemed to be racking his brain to remember something. "It is strange!" he said in an undertone, as if he were talking to himself. "Several times I have examined this hand, and every time it has seemed to me as if I had already examined it long ago. But what are the marks which have struck me so? The mensal line is of favorable length; the medial is a little doubtful; but the line of life is perfect. There is nothing extraordinary about it. The predominating characteristic of this youth should be a steadfast will, firm and unswerving as the arrow aimed by a sure hand. That is not what has aroused my wonder heretofore. And then my memories are too confused not to refer to some long ago time; and your master is not more than twenty-five, is he, Dame Aloyse?" "He is only twenty-four, Messire." "He was born in 1533, then. Do you know the day?" "It was the 6th of May." "But you don't know whether it was in the morning or the evening?" "Pardon me! I was with his mother when he was born. It was just on the stroke of half after six in the morning." Nostradamus made a note of these facts. "I will see what was the condition of the heavens on that day at that hour," said he. "But if Vicomte d'Exmès were twenty years older, I would swear that I had already held his hand in mine; but that's of little consequence, after all. It is not the sorcerer, as the people sometimes call me, but the physician, who has work to do here; and I tell you again, Dame Aloyse, the physician will answer now for the invalid's welfare." "Pardon, Master!" said Aloyse, sadly; "you say that you will answer for the disease, but that you will not answer for the passion." "The passion! Oh! But," Nostradamus replied, smiling significantly, "I should say that the attendance of the little maid twice a day tends to show that the passion is not altogether a hopeless one." "Quite the contrary, Master,--quite the contrary!" cried Aloyse, in an accent of horror. "Come, come, Dame Aloyse! wealthy, gallant, young, and handsome as Vicomte d'Exmès is, a man is in no danger of being held off for long by the ladies in a time like ours. A brief postponement is the utmost he has to fear." "But suppose that this is not the case, Master. Suppose that when Monseigneur is restored to life and reason, the first and only thought which his restored reason will entertain should be this: 'The woman whom I love is irrevocably lost to me,' then what will happen to him?"