"The Marquis d'Harville."

"You alarm me!"

"He gave a breakfast this morning to several of his friends. Everything was going off well; he, above all, had never been more gay, when a fatal imprudence—"

"Go on, go on!"

"In playing with a pistol which he did not know was loaded—"

"He has wounded himself?"

"Worse!"

"Well?"

"Something very terrible!"

"What do you say?"