"Who--are you?"
"I?" Roly laughed. "Why, I am your cousin Emile!"
The householder voiced a thin shriek and began to plead for his life.
Then the remnants of his strength escaped, leaving him a spineless heap in the great leather chair.
Van Dam bore him in his arms down the hall, searching for a place of concealment. This he found in a closet, the door of which he closed.
Then he hastened back to the front entrance.
"You kept us waiting sufficiently," Madelon said, as he stepped aside for the two women to enter.
Roly"s eyes were glued upon the taller of the two figures, but Felice seemed to take no heed of him. He heard her murmuring in a sick, eager voice:
"Emile! My own beloved! Emile!"
Madelon raised her hand in a warning gesture and the young man shrank closer into the shadows.
"Courage, dear!" she said to her companion. "We have arrived at last. A moment now and he will come." She half led, half supported the taller woman into the library. The next instant she was back at Van Dam"s side.
Drawing him into the parlor, across the hall, she exclaimed in a voice which showed that tears were in her eyes: "Thank Heaven, no one recognized us! But I was weak with fright. Oh! It was pitiful! I have wept at every step. She has been calling you like that, night and day.
Go--quickly!" She removed his mask and thrust him into the hall.
This was the most embarra.s.sing moment Van Dam had experienced thus far.
He had been prepared to face eventual discovery, and had decided to make a clean breast of his part in this comedy when the necessary moment arrived, but--this was altogether different. Felice was ill, half-demented. What might be the effect upon her of this disclosure?
There was nothing to do, however, but to face it out and to make the truth known as quickly and as gently as possible.
But as he entered the study he received a surprise that robbed the adventure of all its entertainment, that changed this comedy into a tragedy and humbled the man"s reckless spirit.
III
Van Dam saw that which filled him with an aching pity; for, instead of a girl, he found awaiting him a frail, sweet-faced old woman whose fingers were locked as if in prayer, whose lips were murmuring the name of her son. Her hair, softer and finer than silken floss, was silvery white; her wistful, wrinkled countenance was ablaze with a glad excitement that made it glorious and holy. That which caused Van Dam"s heart to melt and to turn away completely, however, was the fact that she was blind.
She had heard his step, m.u.f.fled as it was in the inch-thick carpet, and rose with a tender cry, pausing with her arms outstretched, her body shaken by an ecstasy of yearning.
"Emile! Emile!" she whispered, and came toward him. Her sightless eyes were wet; she was trembling terribly.
Van Dam experienced a desire to flee. He tried to speak and to warn her off, but as the feeble figure swayed toward him, the age-old, appalling tragedy of mother love caused his throat to tighten. Then he took her hands in his; his arms enfolded her. She lay against his breast, weeping softly, gladly, while he bowed his head reverently over hers. Had his life depended upon his speaking, he could not have done so. He merely waited, with a sick feeling of dread, the instant of her awakening. He was vaguely surprised as moment followed moment and it did not come.
Then he discovered the explanation. Grief had set her wits to wandering; days and weeks and months of yearning had burned away some part of her faculties, leaving her possessed by such a reasonless hunger that almost any object would have served to fill her want. He had heard of demented mothers whose minds had been saved by the subst.i.tution of a living for a dead child, and it seemed that this was a similar case; for she was flooded now with a supreme content and appeared to experience no suspicion of fraud.
The touch of her fluttering fingers on his cheek was like the caress of b.u.t.terfly wings; her voice was soft; her words, though wandering, were tender and filled with such a heaven-born adoration that his distress was multiplied. This was her hour, he reflected. Perhaps an all-wise Providence had selected him to fill this part and to bring glory to her withered heart. At any rate, he would have been unspeakably cruel to disillusionize her.
He led her to a chair, then knelt and bowed his head to her straying fingers, murmuring those terms of endearment which cause a mother"s breast to thrill. When he looked up to Madelon, at last, she saw that he was crying--quite like a little boy.
From the disconnected words that fell from the blind woman"s lips he began, after a time, to piece the truth together.
Emile had been an only son, a paragon of manly virtues, the keeper of his mother"s soul. There had come a great shock and a great disgrace that had evidently conspired to unseat her reason. She spoke indirectly of them, as a child marked by some prenatal influence recoils at contact with the cause of its infirmity. Then, it seemed, Madelon had come to watch over and to comfort her, filling a son"s place with a daughter"s devotion. There had been persecution, want, the loss of property through an enemy of whom the mother spoke ramblingly. Van Dam recollected the dried-up villain in the closet down the hall, and felt a flame of rage mount through him. He longed mightily to ask questions, to run the matter down without delay, but dared not, for he was in momentary dread that the imposture would be discovered. So he spoke as infrequently as possible, and subst.i.tuted for words those gentle caresses and endearing attentions that are far more welcome to a starving heart. Madelon remained close by, adding a grain of comfort and encouragement now and then, and regarding Van Dam with a strangely bewildered attention.
But the mother was far from strong. Her excitement had wearied her, and now, with the relaxation of contentment, fatigue stole over her. She lay back among the soft cushions, her restless hands moving more slowly, her gentle voice stilled. She dozed at last, her face serene and beatific.
Madelon motioned to Van Dam, and he rose. Noiselessly they stole across the hall and into the drawing-room, leaving the placid figure in repose.
She turned upon him, saying, doubtfully: "With every moment you surprise me, Emile. You are not at all what I expected, not at all the cousin of whom I have heard so much! Even in looks you seem--how shall I say it?--strange."
"Are you pleased or disappointed?"
"Ah! Pleased! I--I feel that I must weep. You are so brave and strong, and yet so gentle, so sweet! Perhaps only a mother recognizes the good that is in one. That scene in yonder was very--touching. I--I can hardly credit my ears and my eyes."
"It"s plain you have a wrong idea of me. I"m not at all a bad sort."
"So I begin to believe, in spite of everything. La! It is confusing. I am all in a whirl." She uttered a hesitating, silvery little laugh that proved her embarra.s.sment.
"We must speak quickly," he said. "I am also greatly confused. You have opened up a great possibility for me, Madelon. The whole world is suddenly different. I--I think I am in love with you, my little cousin."
She flung out her hand to check him, crying: "No, no! I could never love you!"
Her voice was uncertain, and he imprisoned her outstretched palm. Then, with his free hand, he removed her mask. She made no resistance, she did not even draw away from him. His heart leaped wildly at the face he saw; for it was more perfect even than he had imagined. The eyes were deep brown, the skin was smooth and olive-hued, the lips were red and pouting with embarra.s.sment. She met his hungry gaze with a flaming blush of defiance; then she smiled pathetically, and without further delay he drew her to him and kissed her once, twice, again and again, until she lay, spent and shaken, in his arms. After a time, she said, wonderingly:
"What miracle is this? I have always hated you; I--hate you now when I think of the evil you have done. I shall continue to hate you."
"I hardly believe that."
"It is very sad that this has come to pa.s.s; it means nothing but unhappiness."
"How so?"
"Can you ask? You--a refugee, with a price upon your head!" She shuddered and buried her face against his shoulder. "Why have you made me love you?"
"It was fate, my little witch. If you will trust me, all will come out right in the end. But there is a great deal here that I don"t understand. For instance, how came you two to be in want?"
"Surely you know as well as I."
"I do not."
"But I wrote--"
"Letters go astray. Tell me."
"There is little to tell. We hardly know ourselves, except that we trusted in our good cousin Alfred, as you trusted. He is a snake!" She clutched Roland fiercely by the folds of his domino. "Oh! It is too bad that I did not know you sooner, Emile! I would have saved you from those evil men; for I am very wise. But now you must suffer the punishment for your crime; and I must suffer also. It is hardly just, is it?"
"Suppose I told you--er--I am innocent?"
"Please!" One rosy palm closed his lips. "You must never lie to me, even to promote my happiness. No! When a woman loves, she loves blindly, without reason, regardless of her lover"s unworthiness. You have brought misery to me as you brought it to--her. Perhaps you, too, will suffer, as a punishment."
"And why have you devoted yourself to my mother?" he inquired.