is no more to the affair. . . . But Roxane must never know. That is imperative. For her, and for everyone else in the world, I have been dead two years. You and I-and only you and I, except perhaps the devil-will know that I died to-night. You can trust me, can you not? Here, I give you my hand on it."

The Comte de Chenavard stood up and held out his hand.

"My son," he said, gravely, "it would appear that the last of the Chenavards is the noblest."

Slowly, with the smile still at his lips, Monsieur Georges took from his pockets the large unset emerald, the ring with the single sapphire that the Roi Soleil had given to his famous ancestor, the jeweled snuffbox adorned with a fleur-delis done in turquoises, and the Limoges enamels by Pierre Reymond, coveted by the Louvre.

"Where I am going," said he, "I shall have no use for these," and he placed them side by side on the library table. Then he bade his father a cheerful good night and went out through the window by which he had entered.

When Monsieur Georges reached his rooms that night he found them deserted. The fact that Kiki was not there angered him unduly-angered him more on that night than it would have on any other occasion. He was in search of consolation-of a friendly. word, of a soothing voice.

"She is with Jean Leboeuf," he said to himself, and cursed her in a red rage. Kiki had been all that he had and now he no longer had Kiki.

But presently his rage left him and he ceased to curse. Inspiration invariably calmed him, and it was inspiration that gripped him now.

"She is with Jean Leboeuf," he repeated, but this time he put no bitterness into the phrase. Rather there was a touch of a smile deepening the corners of his mouth. He stood for an instant, gazing blankly at the ceiling of his room,

pondering, weighing possibilities; then he said, aloud, "It is a solution-and as good as another."

He moved abruptly over to the night table beside his bed and took his revolver from the drawer, but before placing the weapon in his pocket he first opened it and carefully removed all the cartridges. "It is best to be on the safe side," he reflected. "I might forget myself. . . my unfortunate temper.'

Then he went to the wine shop where he had seen Kiki last. He opened the door boldly. There was no one there but the proprietor, who volunteered the information that Kiki had departed an hour ago. No, he did not know where she had gone. Yes, she had gone out alone.

During the ensuing half hour Monsieur Georges visited six different bars, and in the sixth he came upon Kiki and Jean Leboeuf sitting close together, drinking brandy from the same glass. Kiki gave a little frightened scream, and Jean Leboeuf's hand moved quickly toward his pocket.

But Monsieur Georges said, pleasantly: "Good evening. May I join you?"

They stared at him uneasily and neither of them answered. So Monsieur Georges, heedless of their agitation, drew up a chair to the table and ordered one single brandy for himself and a double one for them.

"It is perhaps best," he explained, "that all three of us should not drink from the same glass. It delays the traffic. . . . Kiki, will you be kind enough to raise Leboeuf's glass for him? His drinking hand, I perceive, is engaged in fondling his revolver, which thus far he has decided to retain in his pocket. You will help him, won't you, Kiki, for I am sure that he is thirsty? Also, it is good that a man who is about to die should first be warmed and heartened for the event. Death, I assure you, is almost painless when one is full of brandy."

As he said this, Monsieur Georges

raised his own glass to his lips and emptied it.

"Drink heartily, Leboeuf," he urged. "It will be your last."

Leboeuf regarded him sullenly. "Put both your hands on the table," he said, at length, "and I will drink. And it won't be my last."

"Certainly," said Monsieur Georges. He stretched his arms straight out in front of him and laid his hands, palms upward, in the middle of the table.

"No weapons, you perceive, ladies and gentlemen," he observed, cheerfully. "Nevertheless, it will be your last drink, my friend."

At this Kiki spoke for the first time since Monsieur Georges had entered.

"Don't drink, Jean," she urged. "Can't you see that he means what he says? As soon as your hand leaves your revolver he will kill you. You have only to look at his eyes to know."

"Ah!" exclaimed Monsieur Georges"behold the wonderful intuition of woman! Even Kiki, the rose of the mire, possesses it. Leboeuf, if you knew Kiki as well as I you would be proud to lose your precious life for her. She has all of the vices and none of the virtuesa most unusual woman. .. Well, Leboeuf, are you afraid to drink?”

"No," answered Leboeuf, "I will drink to your eternal damnation."

"Melodrama," said Monsieur Georges, with a shrug. "Can you not keep in the 'Can you not keep in the vein of light comedy?"

Leboeuf's hand quit his revolver pocket and he leaned over and seized the glass. Monsieur Georges watched him closely. Kiki watched Monsieur Georges, and suddenly she cried, "Be careful, Jean!"

But she was a full second too late. Monsieur Georges had Leboeuf covered before he could drop his glass; and in the silence Monsieur Georges's finger pressed the trigger. There came a low, sharp click-then another. And another. And, coincident with a fourth, came the loud report of Leboeuf's revolver, and Monsieur Georges fell forward on his face across the table.

Leboeuf was shaking from both fear and relief; but gradually wonder elbowed these emotions aside, and he stooped down to pick Monsieur Georges's weapon from the floor. He opened it and examined it closely.

"Empty!" he exclaimed, amazed, and then he added, slowly: "The fool! The careless fool!"

...

Monsieur Georges stirred a little on the table, and as he did so a thin stream of blood trickled from his side and mingled with the spilled brandy. With an effort he turned his head to face Leboeuf.

"You are the fool, Leboeuf," he whispered. "I have never killed a mannot even myself."

With that his body crumpled at the waist, and Kiki caught him in her arms as he fell to the floor.

WHEN

HEN Sir Philip Burne-Jones allowed an American admirer of his father's genius to acquire a sketchbook containing thirty-nine pages of pencil drawings by the great painter, he accompanied the volume with a letter stating that this sketchbook, now in the possession of the Art Institute of Chicago, belonged to the finest period of his father's work. The pages that are here reproduced are sufficient evidence of Sir Philip's accuracy, not alone be cause some of these drawings are studies for various of the most celebrated paintings of Burne-Jones, but because all of them reveal at its height the mastery of the most consummate draftsman among English artists of the nineteenth century.

The early career of Burne-Jones, who was born in 1833, was attended first by neglect and later by ridicule on the part of both public and critics. In the last weeks of his life Burne-Jones had the ironic satisfaction of seeing one of his works sold at public auction for the then

VOL. CXLI.-No. 846.-97

huge sum of 5,450 guineas, a price, indeed, that would now be merely nominal for this masterpiece, "The Mirror of Venus."

Of the group of studies for this painting in the sketchbook, the three here chosen are of incalculable interest. The painting, it will be remembered, shows Venus, with nine of her attendants, grouped around a pool, in whose waters, partially covered by lily-pads, their forms and faces are reflected. Venus, the third from the left, stands upright, all the others being either in a kneeling or in a stooping attitude. Technically the most impressive of these female figures is she who, with hands crossed, kneels at the left of Venus. For here, in the second of our drawings, we see a treatment of drapery astounding in its solution of difficulties. Complexities in folds, in planes, and in texture of material are all solved with comprehension that drapery, be it never so effective in itself, must yet reveal significantly

the human form beneath; and it is to be questioned whether any modern artist with the simple medium of pencil has ever in the study of drapery gone beyond this drawing by Burne-Jones. But even more superb success is attained in the fifth drawing, annotated in Sir Philip's autograph as "Studies for arms and feet of Venus." Here we come to a field of drawing that has proved too much for many a famous painter, no other parts of the human body being so difficult to delineate as the hands and feet.

One drawing (at right, page 769) in this series is the study for the head of the fourth figure from the right in the finished painting. Here we have one of those typical and fascinating PreRaphaelite faces so closely associated with the paintings of Rossetti and Burne-Jones; in this instance historically all the more interesting in that the model was the daughter of William Morris with whom Burne-Jones had entered Oxford and who had been his roommate in early years at London. Το Morris, Burne-Jones owed his introduc