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58 him, or because of a sudden, crushing feeling of loneliness, that the other confided in him. But he did confide.

"It was terrible," the doctor said afterward, when speaking of the whole happening to some colleagues of his at the Café des Reines; "it was dramatic, and it was true what he told me! You see, in a few words he gave me the reason for those strange habits of his which so intrigued Paris at the time.

"His choice of residence, there, in that packed, pulsing quarter—on the other hand, his refusal to take his share in the amenities of society—sport, dancing—anything in fact which in the slightest degree was connected with danger yes, danger!—accidents, you see; his hatred of dark places and of the hours of night; his demand for bright lights; the armed servants who accompanied him everywhere—why, my friends, it was nothing but a huge and intricate stage-setting for his daily, continuous fight with death.

"Yes!—he feared death! Nor was it the everyday, shivering fear of the coward. It was something more terrible, more gigantic. It was something in a way primitive and sublime—" and Dr.