"
The terrible scene had seemed so real, it could not be a dream, he
thought; a desire to throw light upon the puzzle excited him; he
managed to reach the door, opened it after many efforts, and stood on
the threshold of his salon. There they were--his dear pictures, his
statues, his Florentine bronzes, his porcelain; the sight of them
revived him. The old collector walked in his dressing-gown along the
narrow spaces between the credence-tables and the sideboards that
lined the wall; his feet bare, his head on fire. His first glance of
ownership told him that everything was there; he turned to go back to
bed again, when he noticed that a Greuze portrait looked out of the
frame that had held Sebastian del Piombo's _Templar_. Suspicion
flashed across his brain, making his dark thoughts apparent to him, as
a flash of lightning marks the outlines of the cloud-bars on a stormy
sky. He looked round for the eight capital pictures of the collection;
each one of them was replaced by another. A dark film suddenly
overspread his eyes; his strength failed him; he fell fainting upon
the polished floor.
So heavy was the swoon, that for two hours he lay as he fell, till
Schmucke awoke and went to see his friend, and found him lying
unconscious in the salon. With endless pains Schmucke raised the
half-dead body and laid it on the bed; but when he came to question
the death-stricken man, and saw the look in the dull eyes and heard
the vague, inarticulate words, the good German, so far from losing his
head, rose to the very heroism of friendship.
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