"You knew of it, then?
He had tried to procure it through Louis, and on the pretence that the box contained papers needed by the State.

Failing in that he came last evening to me, and told me the truth." "The truth ?" Claude asked, wondering.

"But was it the truth ?" "It was." Her eyes, like stars on a rainy night, shone softly.

"I have proved it." Again, with a ring of exultation in her voice, "I have proved it!" she cried.
"How ?" "There was in the box a drug, he told me, possessed of an almost miraculous power over disease of body and mind; so rare and so wonderful that none could buy it, and he knew of but this one dose, of which Messer Basterga had possessed himself.

He begged me to take it and to give it to him.