"But of what?" I persisted; "what kills me? Miss Multon at present dies simply that the author may get rid of her. I don't want to be laughed at. We are not in the days of 'Charlotte Temple'—we suffer, but we live. To die of a broken heart is to be guyed, unless there is an aneurism. Now what can Miss Multon die from? If I once know that, I'll find out the proper business for the scene."
"Perhaps you'd have some of the men carry knives," sneered Cazauran, "and then she could be stabbed?"
"Oh, no!" I answered; "knives are not necessary for the stabbing of a woman; a few sharp, envenomed words can do that nicely—but we are speaking of death, not wounds; from what is Miss Multon to die?"
Then Mr. Palmer made suggestions, and Miss Morris made suggestions, and Mr. Cazauran triumphantly wiped them out of existence. But at last Cazauran himself grudgingly remarked that consumption would do well enough, and Mr. Palmer and I, as with one vengeful voice, cried out, Camille! And Cazauran said some things like "Nom de Dieu!" or "Dieu de Dieu!" and I said: "Chassez à droite," but the little man was vexed and would not laugh.
Someone proposed a fever—but I raised the contagion question. Poison was thought of, but that would prevent the summoning of the children from Paris, by Dr. Osborne. We parted that day with the question unanswered.
At next rehearsal I still wondered how I was to die, hard or easy, rigid or limp, slow or quick. "Oh," I exclaimed, "I must know whether I am to die in a second or to begin in the first act." And in my own exaggerated, impatient words I found my first hint—"why not begin to die in the first act?"
When we again took up the question, I asked, eagerly: "What are those two collapses caused by—the one at the mirror, the other at the school-table with the children?"
"Extreme emotion," I was answered.
"Then," I asked, "why not extreme emotion acting upon a weak heart?"
Mr. Palmer was for the heart trouble from the first—he saw its possibilities, saw that it was new, comparatively speaking at least—I suppose nothing is really new—and decided in its favor; but for some reason the little man Cazauran was piqued, and the result was that he introduced just one single line, that could faintly indicate that Miss Multon was a victim of heart disease—in the first act, where, after a violent exclamation from the lady, Dr. Osborne said: "Oh, I thought it was your heart again," and on eight words of foundation I was expected to raise a superstructure of symptoms true enough to nature to be readily recognized as indicating heart disease; and yet oh, difficult task! that disease must not be allowed to obtrude itself into first place, nor must it be too poignantly expressed. In brief, we decided I was to show to the public a case of heart disease, ignored by its victim and only recognized among the characters about her by the doctor.