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"She is turning cold," replied Monsieur Fanjat.
Monsieur de Sucy made a few steps to tear himself away from the sight; but he stopped, whistled the air that Stephanie had known, and when she did not come to him, went on with staggering steps like a drunken man, still whistling, but never turning back.
General Philippe de Sucy was thought in the social world to be a very agreeable man, and above all a very gay one. A few days ago, a lady complimented him on his good humor, and the charming equability of his nature.
"Ah! madame," he said, "I pay dear for my liveliness in my lonely evenings."
"Are you ever alone?" she said.
"No," he replied smiling.
If a judicious observer of human nature could have seen at that moment the expression on the Comte de Sucy's face, he would perhaps have shuddered.
"Why don't you marry?" said the lady, who had several daughters at school. "You are rich, t.i.tled, and of ancient lineage; you have talents, and a great future before you; all things smile upon you."
"Yes," he said, "but a smile kills me."
The next day the lady heard with great astonishment that Monsieur de Sucy had blown his brains out during the night. The upper ranks of society talked in various ways over this extraordinary event, and each person looked for the cause of it. According to the proclivities of each reasoner, play, love, ambition, hidden disorders, and vices, explained the catastrophe, the last scene of a drama begun in 1812. Two men alone, a marquis and former deputy, and an aged physician, knew that Philippe de Sucy was one of those strong men to whom G.o.d has given the unhappy power of issuing daily in triumph from awful combats which they fight with an unseen monster. If, for a moment, G.o.d withdraws from such men His all-powerful hand, they succ.u.mb.
