III

Quite a dealer in death. And ours was a case

That those difficult drugs of his laboratory

Demanded. I visited; found him; his face,

Bent over a sublimate,—safe from the hoary

Light particles,—masked with a mask of fine glass.

I told him your danger, Marie, and expounded

Our passion, despair, with many an "Alas!"

He smiled while a paste in a mortar he pounded.

IV