The Breath of Araby

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Becoming too persistent in his attentions, Clothilde, Mlle. Chevasset, daughter of a wealthy aristocrat, determines to place De Launay, whom her father wishes her to marry, in a compromising position. This she carries out. Her father enters, and believing the man is insulting his daughter, challenges him to a duel. De Launay receives a mortal wound. Mlle. Chevassat endeavors to fascinate Captain Thurston, an army officer, with whom she is passionately in love, but that gentleman is a married man, and proves to be an honorable one, in that he meets all her advances coolly. Learning that Ahmed Hassan, a wealthy Persian, has in his possession, the last drop of "The Breath of Araby," the most potent of love charms. Clothilde uses all her allurements on the Persian to make him give her the little flask containing the precious drop, which she intends to use on Thurston. She finally gains her end, and "The Breath of Araby" becomes her property. She then sends tor Thurston on a take message to meet her at the Chat Noir, a café. Her father sees the message, and crushed at thought of what she is about to do, determines to end it all, so taking a bottle of poison and a revolver to the Blue Room of the Chat Noir. While he is trying to decide which means to use, he hears a knock. Hastily swallowing the poison, he lies down on a couch with the revolver cocked in his hand. The proprietor enters, and thinking the man asleep, covers him with a robe. Clothilde enters shortly afterwards, and seeing the reclining figure on the couch, believes Thurston has already arrived. Bending over the dead man, she pours the precious drop on him, just as Thurston, himself, enters to keep his appointment. Horrified, she grasps the hand of the supposed sleeper to turn him over. The movement contracts the muscles of the trigger finger, somewhat in the manner of reflex action, the pressure fires the cartridge and the bullet enters the heart of Clothilde, ending her career forever.