For a time all went well, then discovery came, and only the kind intriguing of as good friends as any man deserved prevented his arrest and punishment.

But it all got whispered about; and while some ladies saw a touch of romance in his doing professionally and wholesale what they themselves did in an amateurish way with laces, gloves and so on, men viewed the matter more seriously, and advised Ferrol to leave Quebec.
Since that time he had lived by his wits--and pleasing, dangerous wits they were--at Montreal and elsewhere.

But fatal ill-luck pursued him.
Presently a cold settled on his lungs.

In the dead of winter, after sending what money he had to his sister, he had lived a week or more in a room, with no fire and little food.

As time went on, the cold got no better.