"Bien cordialement à vous."
The rules of work had been, perforce, relaxed lately, and almost all the working time had been devoted to writing the "Quest of Happiness," and an article on "Formative Influences" for the "Forum," besides the concluding articles for "Scribner's Magazine."
A decided and rapid improvement in health had taken place, and when, at the beginning of October, Miss Betham-Edwards came to see us, she found my husband much as usual—though looking older—as she told me afterwards.
A few days after she had come to déjeuner at Clématis we went to lunch with her at her hotel, and spent the whole day together, visiting the Musée Carnavalet, and having a long walk the whole way back to the Rue d'Alger. We crossed the Cour du Louvre, where my husband explained in detail the various transformations and changes in the architecture of the palace at different periods of time. Then, in the fading twilight, we had a look at the magnificent and poetical vista opened by the removal of the Tuileries, before saying goodbye; and when we reached Clématis for a late dinner, Gilbert told my mother that he had enjoyed the day and did not feel tired in the least.
On the following Sunday we had a long walk in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne with some friends, and near the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile we happened to espy the doctor, when my husband remarked cheerfully, "Doctor B——, who was to see me again in two months, would be surprised to hear that I am cured already."
On October 17, a fire was lighted for the first time this autumn in Gilbert's study, and before the flue became heated and a good draught produced, the smoke was considerable. I warned him not to remain in the room, the air being so bad; he answered that as soon as the work he had begun allowed of it, he would go out. I left the door open on purpose, and begged him not to close it; but when I went up again with the letters—two hours after—I found him still at work, in an atmosphere of dense yellow smoke, without possible escape, the door having been closed again. As usual, when writing, my husband became so wrapt in his work that he was not conscious of anything outside of it.
I became alarmed for him, as I could hardly breathe, but he felt no inconvenience just then.
In the afternoon he had a walk, but in the evening he went up again to the study, and remained there over an hour, giving a lesson in English pronunciation to one of his nephews. The smoke had, however, subsided, and the fire burned steadily.
At half-past one I was awakened by a sensation of chill on the forehead—it came from my husband's lips—he was giving me, as he thought, a last kiss, for he murmured faintly, "J'ai voulu te dire que je t'ai bien aimée, car je crois que je vais mourir."
He was deadly pale, but quite collected. I helped him to dress, and we managed to reach the garden for purer air. He wrote afterwards in his diary that his sufferings had been horrible, and lasted in full two hours and a half. I tried to encourage him in the struggle for life, by saying that it was asthma, and that I had witnessed a dear relation of ours struggling successfully through several similar attacks. I felt certain now that it was asthma, and I said so to the doctor on the following day. He answered, "It is cardiac asthma, then."