THOSE WHO RETURN

               (L'ombre)

               by Maurice Level

                    translated from the French by: Bérengère Drillien

            XI

       Claude was sitting in the office on the ground-floor, when Mère Chagne opened the door and announced:

        “Visitors for you, Monsieur Claude.”

        M. de Marbois entered at the same moment:

        “Good-day, my boy.”

        “Good-day, monsieur,” replied Claude.

        M. de Marbois looked round at M. Coutelet who was behind him, and held out a hand to his son. But Claude pretended not to see, and merely pointed to a chair.

        M. Coutelet had warned M. de Marbois that has son was in an extremely excitable state, and that he must not be surprised at anything peculiar in his conversation. He had put him on his guard against any possible gentleness that might precede extraordinary fits of fury in these words:

        “It may be that when you first see him you will notice nothing of the condition that worries me; that M. Claude will give you the impression of absolute mental balance. If this should happen, do not imagine that I have been unnecessarily alarmed. Everything may change from one minute to another, and I, who have watched him closely, must confess, I find it quite impossible to tell you what words to choose, or what to abstain from, in order to provoke one of these attacks.”

        Nevertheless he was amazed at his reception, and explained his visit haltingly:

        “Just imagine! a short while since I was just about to put up my shutters, when, to my surprise, I saw your father!...”

        “Yes,” went on M. de Marbois, “I was worried at having no news of you, so I decided to come and see for myself.”

        “That is very kind of you. …Besides you have not taken me by surprise,” answered Claude. “I am always ready for anything and was expecting your visit. …But never mind that, the chief thing is that you are here.”

        He said these words with a courtesy that constrasted with his former brusk manner. M. Coutelet saw in this a sign of what he had mentioned to M. de Marbois as they went upstairs; this change of front was well timed to add something to his diagnosis, and throw light upon it. M. de Marbois glanced at him to show that he understood, and put in his word:

        “How are you?”

        “Very well; I have never been better. M. Coutelet will tell you, if he has not already done so, that I am in the best of health, and the country suits me wonderfully well. The house is charming, and the only thing that surprises me is that you have never thought of coming here for the holidays. When I arrived it was rather depressing, but I am having it put in order, and when the work I have decided upon is finished, it will be a very presentable place.”

        “Quite so!” M. de Marbois assured him, “but as it is now, it does not look very comfortable to me, and until the repairs are completed what do you say to a little voyage? M. Coutelet and I were discussing it as we came along.”

        “We’ll see…yet I like it here. What is wanting? What do I need that I cannot get here?”

        “It is not a case of starting at once,” M. de Marbois corrected him.

        “Autumn is pleasant in this part of the country,” put in the apothecary.

        “No doubt, no doubt,” said Claude approvingly, “time enough for all that.”

        Then, suddenly, his easy attitude stiffened, he became ceremonious, and added graciously:

        “I hope you will do me the honor of dining with me?”

        The question seemed so out-of-place, that M. de Marbois was on the point of bursting out laughing. A father who has spent twelve hours in the train, to go and see his son, would generally consider such an invitation superfluous. A sign from M. Coutelet stopped him, and he replied in the same tone:

        “Thank you, with the greatest pleasure.”

        At once Claude clapped his hands:

        “That is nice of you, and gives me pleasure! Hurrah for light and gayety! You are right, M. Coutelet, absolutely right! Life is good!”

        He laughed. Mère Chagne who was standing on the threshold, stared in astonishment. He took hold of her arm:

        “Mère Chagne, lay three covers, and give us some good wine.”

        She looked at him in amazement; her bewilderment amused him:

        “You can’t get over my being so gay? Try to imagine, my good woman, the joy that fills a person, when those he loves best come to see him; a friend, who sometimes forsakes him… I am speaking to you, M. Coutelet...”

        “Forgive me,” stammered the apothecary, “I have been so busy these last few days…”

        Claude patted the old man’s wrist in friendly fashion:

        “Of course, of course I understand…”

        Then, open-armed, he turned to M. de Marbois:

        “And a father…”

        M. de Marbois stepped forward and opened his arms too; but already Claude had dropped his, and, seizing Mère Chagne by the shoulder, he shook her, crying:

        “Yes, good dame! the best wine, the most delicious food! Ransack the cupboards, plunder the sideboards, hunt out the finest linen, the costliest silver!”

        He pushed her out on the landing, and turning to his father said:

        “It is my intention to treat you as well as I can, so that you may always remember my rustic hospitality.”

        When dinner was served they all sat down. Claude’s appetite was excellent. He laughed, chatted, looked after his guests, like a host who knows his duties, and rejoices in them. Now and then, M. de Marbois looked first at his son, then at M. Coutelet, as much as to say to the latter:

        “What have you been talking about? I think he is extremely sensible.”

        And M. Coutelet pursed up his lips in a way that meant: “Patience, you will see…”

        As for Claude he took no notice of this mute interchange of opinion, but, glass in hand, said jokingly:

        “Aren’t you going to drink anything then?”

        Presently, he stretched out a hand, and took a dusty bottle. Uncorking it carefully, he announced:

        “Château-Laroze, 1880! That year, it appears, was an extraordinary one in every way. This wine is a few months older than I. The grapes from which it was pressed were ripening, when what was to be myself was just beginning to develop.”

        “No, thank you,” said M. de Marbois, putting a hand over his glass.

        “Don’t you care for this brand?” cried Claude in astonishment. “I am very sorry because I particularly thought you would like it. Perhaps, after all, it is not so good as I hoped. …What is your opinion, M. Coutelet?”

        “I think it is extremely good.”

        “If you don’t care for the date,” said Claude pleasantly to his father, “I can give you another. …Here’s some 79, and some 81. If I made a point of choosing that special year, it was because I thought you would be pleased with the attention; the date of the birth of an only son, is such an important one to parents!”

        He remained with his arm extended, holding the bottle ready to pour:

        “I am not thirsty now,” protested M. de Marbois with a touch of impatience.

        Claude bowed, and spoke of other things, so easily, and with such shrewd wit, that at last M. Coutelet unconstrainedly gave himself up to the enjoyment following on a good dinner well digested.

        When the meal was ended they smoked and drank liqueurs, as they chatted about all kinds of things.

        The clock struck eleven.

        “An unheard-of time for the country!” remarked M. Coutelet as he put on his overcoat.

        Claude accompanied him to the gate. The village was deserted; not a light in the windows, and the road shining white in the moonlight.

        As he said au revoir to him, Claude retained M. Coutelet’s hand in his:

        “What are you thinking of?” asked the old man.

        “I am thinking…” said Claude distinctly in a deep voice.

        But, playing with the little flap of the letter-box, he added:

        “I am thinking of nothing, of absolutely nothing…” M. Coutelet took his departure. As he was about to step into the lane, he turned round: Claude had not moved. His shadow, which was gathered in a heap at his feet, looked like a pedestal making him appear taller.

        “Good night,” cried the apothecary.

        “I will do my best,” answered Claude.

        Then, waiting till he had disappeared behind the wall, he looked carefully, and went back to his father. As he stood facing him, his face twitched slightly, but only for a moment, and he said:

        “Allow me to take you to your room.”

        “I can go quite well by myself,” answered M. de Marbois.

        “What an idea!” said Claude. “I know my duty, and I have given orders for the bedroom on the first floor, near the library to be prepared for you…my mother’s room. …You do not seem to like the arrangement?”

        “I?” ejaculated M. de Marbois, with the vivacity of a man surprised in the middle of his thoughts, “on the contrary. …Although it is painful to be in a room once occupied by one who is no more. …”

        “Who is no more…who is no more…? Do you really believe that human beings disappear so utterly and entirely?”

        “What do you mean?” demanded M. de Marbois.

        “I was just expressing a thought which is familiar to me, a thought which may be absurd. …But please go first, and do not take any notice of my remarks.”

        They went upstairs. Claude went first, carrying a candle which he lifted high above his head, throwing dancing shadows on the walls. The stairs creaked continuously beneath their footsteps; M. de Marbois nearly stopped; Claude explained that the old wood was still warping, or that the worms were accomplishing their work of patient destruction:

        “And yet,” said he, as they reached the landing, “there are times when I cannot believe that there is nothing else in the cry of inanimate objects than the mere movement of matter. For instance, this library…”

        He pushed open the door and drew back before his father.

        M. de Marbois hesitated a moment on the threshold.

        “You still feel the same sadness in being where people died? murmured Claude.

        M. de Marbois straightened himself, and went in.

        Claude had already forgotten his remark, and was pursuing the same idea he had expressed a few seconds before:

        “I was saying that I think there is more in the cry of inanimate things than the mere movement of matter. On several occasions in this room particularly, I have been able to vouch for one strange phenomenon; that bookcase which remains silent when M. Coutelet or Mère Chagne are present, begins to creak the moment I go near it alone.”

        M. de Marbois shrugged his shoulders.

        “Oh, I know,” Claude agreed, “it may sound peculiar. People usually have a contempt for what they have not learned by routine, and with the passion that men have for denying, instead of seeking knowledge, the cleverest among them turn round and round in the miserable little circle they call fact; and it is very flat and arid ground, like that of a threshing-floor; in both instances, there is not enough fresh soil to nourish the forgotten seed. Deny that if you feel brave enough.”

        “At the present moment, what I feel most is a great desire to sleep,” answered M. de Marbois.

        “I should be grieved to deprive you one moment’s sleep,” Claude assured him, “and I admire the light-hearted way in which you can put aside thoughts like these, which stir me so deeply. Shall I make a confession? Sometimes I have been afraid in this room.”

        “Poor Claude,” said M. de Marbois, smiling, “afraid, and of what?”

        “If people knew what they were afraid of, they would not be afraid. I speak for myself of course. Doubtless you have never experienced the feeling.”

        “Never.”

        “I envy you. Some evenings I have to exert uncommon will-power to make myself stay in this room; but I must add that now I come in here without the least fear. But, upon my word; there’s something uncanny about that! Do you hear?”

        “I hear nothing.”

        “You will hear,” murmured Claude, raising his fingers; “and now? can you not hear the bookcase creaking? Once…twice…three times…”

        “When you walk about near old furniture,” M. de Marbois explained. “Give me my candlestick.”

        “Old furniture?” murmured Claude in a dubious tone, “old furniture? That’s soon said! Did we move a step? Did we brush against it? …I tell you again that I have gone close up to it twenty times with Mère Chagne or M. Coutelet in the room, and that never… Your presence has been sufficient to awaken it; silent to every one else, it stirs to a kind of life for you and me. Doesn’t it remind you of an old, deaf, blind, lame dog, who, for all that, feels the approach of the master and proclaims it?”

        “What an imagination!” sneered M. de Marbois. “I can understand that your mind is getting unbalanced among all this old rubbish…”

        “My mind unbalanced?” cried Claude, putting the globe on the lamp which he had just lighted: “You mean that for the first time in my life, my mind has recovered its balance. Devil take Paris, and its enervating life! Here all is discretion and repose. See how orderly everything around us is. …”

        Since the evening before he had put the room tidy, and now invited admiration of its beautiful neatness:

        “Is not everything just as it used to be? I have left it as it was the day I arrived. The furniture is in the same place, the knick-knacks have not been moved an inch, and…forgive me this rather ridiculous care…I have even respected the dust, here and there where there appeared to be a finger-mark or the light brush of a sleeve. In other words, if, as I believe, spirits revisit the places they inhabited, those who haunt this house may wander all over it as they please. I have sat up very late once or twice in this room; each time I had the feeling that I was not alone. But I am keeping you up; you must be tired out with your journey, agitated by this return to the scenes of your youth, and I would not, for the world, keep you any longer from going to bed. This is your bedroom; I have done my best to think of everything you may want. …If by chance I have forgotten anything do not mind telling me. …Is one pillow sufficient? Will one lamp give light enough? Here is a glass of water and some matches. I have put a book on the table beside you in case you are not able to sleep. If it is not to your liking, forgive me, I made the choice as I should have done for myself. It is a book I found on one of the shelves, and that I have read over and over again.”

        “You think of everything,” remarked M. de Marbois, turning over the pages of Clair de Lune and putting it back on the table.

        “I do my best to,” answered Claude. “All that I have to add is that you are at home here, that the keys are in the drawers so that if the fancy takes you, you can open them. Sleep well, do not be afraid of the ghosts. I say that, because the country-folk here are superstitious, and made the same remark to me when I first came to Trois-Tourelles. But I have learned not to fear Those-who-return; I even confess to a certain liking for them, and, believe, without flattering myself too much, that they return the compliment. And now, good-night, sleep well.”

XII

        Claude went towards his room, opened the door, with a clatter, shut it again, but did not go in, and went noiselessly down the stairs into the garden.

        Out there it was adorably silent. The lawns glimmered like velvet in the moonlight; the flowers that still bloomed, sent out perfumes that thrilled one all the more, because neither their shape nor their color could be discerned in the darkness; slugs had left shining tracks on the grass; a huge toad was going the round of the flower-beds. The lighted window of M. de Marbois’ room alone broke the harmonious nocturne. Claude seated himself on a bench that he might gaze at it.

        Now and then a shadow passed before the curtains. Once it stopped, the window opened, the light, no longer shaded by the lace curtains, appeared, dazzling, and M. de Marbois leaned out.

        Presently, however, he drew back, closed the shutters, pulled the curtains together, and nothing remained of the light but a faint glimmer, until that too vanished at last, and the darkness and silence were complete.

        With his eyes fixed on the window, heedless of the cool night air that stirred the branches, Claude sat whistling under his breath. The moon and the stars pursued their journey above him, and, following their imperceptible movement, he ecstatically imagined himself the master of the universe.

        An hour went by thus, and then another. He began to show signs of impatience, leaning to the right, then to the left, stretching out his neck, listening intently. Three o’clock struck. Almost at the same moment a flash of light gleamed from M. de Marbois’ window. At once Claude sat still, a strange smile on his face.

        Any one looking at him would have thought he could see what was taking place behind those walls. Presently he got up from the bench, crossed the lawn, entered the house, went upstairs on tiptoe, down the corridor, arrived at the library door, which he opened.

        M. de Marbois, half-dressed, stood with his back to him: “Who is there?” he cried as he heard the noise.

        “It is only I, don’t be frightened,” said Claude.

        “What do you want?”

        “I am rather like the owls,” explained Claude. “I can only see and hear clearly at night. Thinking I heard you call, like a host mindful of his guest’s comfort, I hastened to your help. That is all.”

        M. de Marbois drew a hand across his brow and sighed.

        “That is all…or nearly,” Claude corrected himself as he urged him slowly towards the bedroom.

        M. de Marbois was trembling to such an extent, that he had to lean against the bed to keep from falling.

        “You seem to be quite overcome,” remarked Claude with a smile. “Is it our conversation about Those-who-return, that troubles you so much? Have you seen some one, by chance?”

        M. de Marbois attempted a smile.

        “What nonsense!”

        “I must admit,” went on Claude, “that just at this moment I cannot see any, but maybe they are hiding? …Let us look for them together, shall we? I feel sure that you will not be afraid to look now that I am with you, and my eyes are so sharp they will be able to discover their hiding-place, when they try to slip out of sight.”

        He lifted the curtains, shook them, opened the dressing-room door, came back to the middle of the room, and pulled aside a hanging.

        “Stop that foolery!” said M. de Marbois indistinctly.

        “Foolery?” cried Claude. “How irreverently you speak! At such a time and in such a place it would be more seemly to measure your words…But I see that your fear is feigned, and that you are making fun of me. …Or is it a bad dream from which you have not yet recovered, that disturbed your sleep? …I may have put some fantastic story on your table. …This one is open, you have read it, and imagination encroaching on reality. …Of course; it is ‘Apparition.’ That story has given me some ghastly hours too. It is not a nice book to read at night, I might even say that it made you open the writing desk?”

        “Of course not…” said M. de Marbois.

        “Be careful,” answered Claude, “or you will make me think that some one, neither you not I, has come into this room. I observe the smallest details with great care. A little while ago, the key was vertical in the lock, and now it is horizontal.”

        “I must have touched it without meaning to.”

        “That is possible. …Everything is possible. …But there is a very easy way to find out. …”

        He let down the flap, at once faced completely round, and cried.

        “Devil take it! The Spirits have gotten a finger in the pie, or a thief has gotten into the room! There was a telegram in that pigeon-hole just before you came in here…”

        “A telegram?” murmured M. de Marbois in a voice that was almost inaudible.

        “Yes, a telegram, an old, a very old telegram. …It’s been stolen.”

        “What’s the use of worrying? was the telegram so important?”

        “So important that I would give one of my arms to have it back!  Ah! but it’s got to be found!”

        He went to the window, calling:

        “Madame Chagne!”

        “Are you mad? You would wake the house for a scrap of paper? Very well, then, yes…I took that telegram. …I burned it…not thinking what I was doing. …What about it?”

        Claude planted himself before him with folded arms:

         “And it never occurred to you that the fact of its having been kept for thirty years showed it to be of great value? But wait a moment…there was something else! Some newspapers; did you burn them too, ‘Not thinking?’ ”

        He rushed to the fireplace, and, finding it empty, burst into a fit of laughter:

        “I told you there were ghosts! Ah! an old and terrible story is coming to an end!”

        “Claude, my child!”

        M. de Marbois staggered. Claude seized him firmly by the arm, and dragged him to the library:

        “You did not expect this? Thirty years have passed since that night of August 12^th, 1880, and the story is as fresh as the dawn of the day that followed it! Would you like me to tell it you as it was told me by the things that surround me? Now dare you tell me there are no Spirits! Of course, they only show themselves when they feel inclined, and when a little encouragement is forthcoming. It looks as though they were disposed to be friendly towards me, as they have led me to the truth. …But first of all give me back that telegram and the papers that you did not burn.”

        M. de Marbois pulled a bundle of papers crumpled from his pocket, and held them out, stammering:

        “Claude, my child…!”

        “There is no doubt,” went on Claude, “that you are not the strong-minded man I thought you. …Had I been in your place, I would have died rather than give them back. …Now you dare not look me straight in the face. You can tell that I know…and I know more than you dare think.”

        He laughed, comfortably seated in the armchair. After giving vent to his delight, he got up, and, in a serious voice, began:

        “It is not for me to judge my mother; whatever sins she may have committed were most surely remitted by what she suffered through you. Any one can forgive a poor girl who turns aside from the right path to escape destitution. M. DeGuy looked on things in that light, seeing that after providing for her for the time being, it was his intention to assure her future by marrying her.”

        M. de Marbois was trembling; Claude took no notice of him:

        “But let us go on, let us go on. …When she was only a poor girl you would not marry her, and you were careful not to seduce her. Once her lot was cast in with another’s, things took on a different aspect. You appear on the scenes again…you return to the assault. …You come to the house, to their house at night. M. DeGuy comes suddenly upon you here, in this very room. He is old, you are young. …You might get away, but you think that after such an escapade, the will in favor of the wretched woman will be annulled, the fortune escape you…and you remain. Ah! it does not take long, or rather it does take long, horribly long. A blow, strangling, would leave traces…you are no such fool! …You seize him in your arms, and press, until the breath leaves his body, until he suffocates, until he falls. You wait until life is extinct. …Then, and then alone, you let him go!”

        M. de Marbois shook his head feebly. Claude burst into a terrible laugh:

        “What do you think about it?  A little imagination has been sufficient to reconstruct the drama, has it not?”

        M. de Marbois stammered:

        “You dare…to your father…”

        Claude’s face became terrible in its gravity:

        “You my father? Look here!”

        He stretched out his wide-open hands. M de Marbois tried to utter a cry, but not a sound came from his mouth, and, putting up a hand to hide his face, he fell backwards.

        “Now,” said Claude, “it’s your turn, my boy!”

        He was standing with one foot on each side of the body, and muttered as he turned up his sleeves:

        “This time I know why I am going to kill. This time it is not a poor dog whose torture I look on at, without knowing why, or a little girl that I am compelled to strangle when I thought I wanted to kiss her mouth…”

        He put his fingers round the neck:

        “You are shamming dead; you think I shall not have the strength nor the courage? I have both. I would rather you made a fight for it though, that you tried to scream, or bite, or struggle; and to prove it…”

        M. de Marbois did not stir; his eyes turned up and showing the whites, seemed sightless; his face was bloodless.

        Claude relaxed his grip and put a hand on the heart:

        “Look here, you’re not going to fool me by dying of fright, I hope?... No you are breathing, God be praised!”

        He was about to continue his task, when suddenly he stood upright and sneered:

        “Death is nothing. The only thing that’s worth while is to watch its approach!...Who would not choose to die like this, unconscious of everything?...You deserve a better fate, my good man!”

        And he went out on tip-toe.

XIII

        Mère Chagne was feeding the chickens. Each time she threw a handful of grain into the air, she called, “Coopy! Coopy! Coopy!” She did this rhythmically and steadily, like a person who had done the same thing thousands of times, and, as the creatures pecked at her feet, she looked at the sky, and at the early autumn trees, to whose gold-tipped foliage a reflection of the summer sun still seemed to cling.

        Although it was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning, the shutters of the master’s house were still closed. Now and then, without slackening or hastening her work, she glanced at them.

        “Good-morning, Mère Chagne!” cried Claude.

        In her surprise she nearly let the corner of her apron go, and spill the grain.

        For two weeks, Claude had kept so much to himself, greeting people with such surly looks and speech, that his calm voice and cheerful voice amazed her:

        “Fine day, isn’t it?”

        She could hardly believe her eyes; was that M. Claude who only yesterday was shut in his room, with an old shawl wrapped round his shoulders, his hair tousled, his face unshaven, so bent and pale-faced, that when you caught a glimpse of him with his eyes glued to the window, he looked like a ghost?...

        This morning, clad in a Norfolk coat, and brown gaiters, with his face clean-shaven, and hair carefully arranged, he looked like another man.

        Dipping a hand into the old woman’s apron, Claude scattered the grain, calling to the chickens as she did. But they hesitated. He began to laugh.

        “Just look at that! I give them food, and they only take to their heels.”

        “Dumb creatures are like people,” explained Mère Chagne, “they only know who looks after them. If the master would only come here a few times, they would not be frightened, and would eat out of your hand.”

        “Well, I’ll come,” he assured her, “it will amuse me. They are fine birds; what would they fetch at market?”

        “Fed as these are? Not less than twenty francs a pair…when you come to think of what it costs to feed them.”

        She spoke garrulously, glad to find her master interested in her work. He listened, questioning her as he had done when he first came to the place, in the days when he had not yet crossed the threshold of the library, and was learning the A.B.C. of his new life.

        Chagne came up. Claude inquired about the sheep and the oxen, the price of the hay, and the produce of the vegetable garden. He asked to see what vegetables had been planted, the dairy which smelt of sour milk, and the hutches where the rabbits were nibbling cabbage leaves with quick and anxious veracity. Up at the farm, Chagne showed him a hare he had killed himself that morning:

        “I spotted him so near the house, that after I had fired I wished I hadn’t, for fear it should wake the master.”

        “I heard nothing,” said Claude.

        “The master sleeps well, he is young.”

        Claude was feeling where the shot had struck the creature. Mère Chagne held out her apron for him to wipe his hands. He praised Père Chagne for his smart shooting, and said he was sorry he had not been up to see it. Chagne told him he knew the whereabouts of another and bigger hare, and that if he liked they would try to get him.

        “That’s a good idea,” said Claude approvingly.

        As they chatted they had come around to the house again. From the lane came the sound of running footsteps and laughter:

        “It’s the children coming out of school,” said Mère Chagne in explanation.

        “What time is it then?”

        “Eleven o’clock.”

        “And my father still asleep!”

        “Monsieur was tired after the journey,” said the farmer.

        “Tired?” said Claude, in the jesting voice of a man who does not know what it is to be lazy and lie abed, “one is never tired in the country!”

        “Oh!” ventured Mère Chagne, winking her eye, “the master is feeling very strong and well this morning; he has not always felt that way!”

        Claude agreed:

        “I was wrong; to-day the fresh air alone has made me feel better. All the more reason that I should wake up my father. Take up his breakfast to him, and tell him how delightful it is here under the trees.”

        Mère Chagne went into the kitchen. He watched her while she arranged a tray with hot coffee, boiling milk, slices of brown bread and a pot of butter. Père Chagne who had plenty to say as soon as shooting was in question, told Claude of a place where he would find as many rabbits as he wanted, and a field, where, as soon as the sun burst through the morning mists, larks were as plentiful as flies round a bit of sugar.

        “We don’t touch them, seeing as how shot is dear, but it will amuse the master who doesn’t mind about that.”

        A scream made them start, and at the same moment they turned round. At a window on the first floor, between the shutters that flapped backwards and forewards, arms uplifted. Mère Chagne appeared:

        “What is the matter?” cried Claude.

        “The master’s father, Monsieur! the master’s father!”

        Breathless with excitement, she could not say another word. Claude rushed to the house, followed by Chagne, ran up the stairs three at a time, and stopped at the door of the library.

        As the old Chagnes were about to kneel down, and lift up M. de Marbois, he thrust them aside. Mère Chagne was biting the corner of her apron.

        “Mother of mercy! is he dead?”

        Claude dared not touch the body; Père Chagne murmured:

        “He is breathing.”

        She crossed herself thankfully, and as Claude slipped his hand under his father’s head, she stammered:

        “He cut his head falling!...the master’s hands are covered with blood!”

        “Nothing of the kind,” said Claude, glancing at them, “they are that color, as you very well know.”

        She crossed herself a second time, then, reassured, speech became imperative:

        “It is like…”

        Père Chagne nudged her with his elbow; she stopped. Claude looked fixedly at her for a moment, she colored and went on:

        “It is like as if M. de Comte had seen something that frightened him. …Look, he has hidden his face with his arm…”

        “That is true,” Claude admitted.

        Then he took hold of the body under his arms:

        “You take his legs,” he ordered.

        Père Chagne bent slowly down.

        “Let us carry him on my bed,” said Claude.

        And as the old man hesitated, he added:

        “What are you waiting for?”

        “Perhaps it would be better to leave M. le Comte as he is, until the arrival of…”

        “Of whom?”

        “…Of no one master,” replied the farmer, lifting the legs.

        As soon as he was laid upon the bed, M. de Marbois opened his eyes:

        “Well, father?” said Claude, bending over him: “what has happened to you?”

        M. de Marbois’ lips moved, but nothing came from them but a meaningless sound:

        “Lie still,” said Claude. “M. Chagne, go and let M. Coutelet know. Get a hot-water bottle ready, Mme. Chagne, then you can light the fire.”

        M. de Marbois still held his arm over his face; after a moment he asked for “something to drink.” Claude poured some water in a glass, added a few drops of peppermint cordial and held it to him. While he went away from the bedside, M. de Marbois put his arm down and opened his eyes. When he saw Claude, he smiled. Then, suddenly the smile became fixed, and his cheeks livid. Still more, when Claude brought the glass nearer his lips. He turned his head, and tried to push away the hand stretched out to him. It was Claude’s turn to smile:

        “Come, let me look after you.”

        He gently held down the arm with his left hand. As the glass touched his teeth, M. de Marbois threw his head back, and a few drops of the liquid spattered his face; one fell on his lips, he wiped it off with the back of his fingers:

        “Come,” insisted Claude, “be reasonable.”

        With his face hidden in his arm again, M. de Marbois refused:

        “No…no…I saw…”

        “What did you see?”

        “I saw you…pour…”

        “This?” said Claude, holding up a bottle, “it is a cordial. Drink…”

        “Must I?” said M. de Marbois more audibly.

        “I advise you to.”

        M. de Marbois took the glass between his two hands, held it up for a moment, and swallowed a mouthful. After which, he gave it back and lay down again on his pillow. But his eyes were not so tightly shut that he did not see Claude drink what was left in the glass, and take up his motionless guard at the foot of the bed again. This reassured him, and at the same time, the cool drink revived him; he breathed more freely, his color came back, and he murmured:

        “I beg forgiveness…”

        Claude did not stir. He repeated: “I beg forgiveness,” so distinctly this time, that Claude said:

        “Of whom do you beg forgiveness, and for what?”

        “Of the man I…”

        He stopped; Claude waited for him to finish his sentence. But the words he now had to pronounce were doubtless so terrible, that his courage failed him, and he contented himself with saying in a hollow voice:

        “You know…”

        “I know nothing, but I think you need rest; try to sleep.”

        “I dreamt of a judge, sometimes, but I never imagined one so dreadful as you,” said M. de Marbois.

        “Go to sleep!” repeated Claude.

        Down in the kitchen, while she broke pieces of wood across her knee, Mère Chagne said to her husband:

        “Isn’t it strange? …In the very same place as M. De Guy, as though it had been done on purpose!...”

        Without replying, Père Chagne whistled to his dog, and went out.

XIV

        When he arrived M. Coutelet found Claude sitting beside his father’s bed. He had feared a greater misfortune, and cried out in his relief:

        “So have you given us a good fright now, M. de Marbois? What happened?”

        He addressed the question to both. Claude answered:

        “I do not know at all. Last night, when I left you, I went in to say goodnight to my father; he seemed perfectly well. As the night was warm, I went for a stroll in the garden, and then I went to bed. I got up early, and was having a look around the place, when, at about eleven o’clock, Mère Chagne, who had taken up his breakfast, found him lying on the library floor. I sent for you at once; that is all I know.”

        M. Coutelet took hold of M. de Marbois’ wrist:

        “The pulse is steady…a little quick but not feverish.”

        He felt his temples and ankles, and rubbed a thumb-nail on his forehead:

        “Your arteries are like a young man’s; you will soon be all right.”

        M. de Marbois smiled faintly; the apothecary went on:

        “Have you any pain? …you have? …you feel bruised all over, and your head aches, doesn’t it? I don’t wonder! It came into contact with the floor, you must have fallen straight backwards.”

        “I do not remember,” answered M. de Marbois.

        “You had no feeling of discomfort before it happened?”

        “Perhaps…”

        “Palpitations?”

        “Maybe…I cannot remember…”

        “You did not reach up to get a book down from one of the shelves?”

        “I am very tired,” murmured M. de Marbois.

        “We are going to leave you in peace; we will discuss the whole thing again, when you have slept a few hours.”

        He patted his hand encouragingly and went out. Claude went with him. As they passed in front of the bookcase, M. Coutelet pointed to a place where the carpet was turned up:

        “Was it here he fell?”

        “It was here he was found.”

        “Indeed,” remarked M. Coutelet, “and you have not the least notion what can have taken place? A man as strong as he is does not fall down in a faint for no reason… Have you never known him to be ill?”

        “Never.”

        “At present I think there is no danger, but later he must be examined by a doctor, he must be supervised…It is a pity I did not see what position he was lying in when he was found. Sometimes a mere attitude helps the diagnosis. Thus for example, a man will come to you, holding his arm in a certain position, which tells its own tale; fracture of the arm. Another bends over this, with his hand pressed flat over his thorax: a fractured rib…”

        He went on, giving example after example, less for the sake of showing his knowledge, than for the pleasure of talking of what he had learned by experience, and proved by books. He also did it, to hide his uneasiness and preoccupation. Claude’s mood a few days before his father’s arrival, the sudden disappearance of his mad ideas, his attitude the night before, now moody, now jovial, a thousand things he had said at different times, the strange coincidence of M. de Marbois’ collapse on the very spot where M. DeGuy had been found, all these things worried him, and excited his curiosity.

        There was something between the account given of the affair, and the truth, that was very certain…but what was it? He stopped what he was saying, asked point-blank:

        “What about you? Were you all right last night?”

        His doubt was becoming more definite. He remembered the incident of little Marie, and the excited state in which he had found Claude the following day. Supposing that a similar had occurred, it was only natural that M. de Marbois should be anxious not to reveal the fact. That must be the reason for his reticent, and vague replies…

        He considered that his own responsibility was seriously involved in the matter. He alone knew of Claude’s morbid condition, and the dangerous lengths to which such a maniac might go. Had he taken things too lightly when he had not told the father exactly how they stood, and when he called “neurasthenia” what might, perhaps, be more serious?

        He made up his mind to have a confidential talk with M. de Marbois as soon as possible; speaking as man to man, he would end by knowing the truth.

        Claude did not seem to be aware of the mental travail going on within him, and answered:

        “I? I never slept better in my life.”

        He spoke so calmly that M. Coutelet doubted his own logic. Besides, Claude had gone back to the first part of their conversation.

        “You were saying that a person’s attitude may help one to diagnose; that is when it relates to a surgical case, I imagine, but what about a medical case?...

        “A medical case,” cried the apothecary, carried away by his subject, “why, my dear fellow, the most extraordinary things have been known to happen. I can remember…many years ago when I was completing my studies in Paris…a man who was found dead in bed. His servant was suspected of having killed, in order to rob him, and, ma foi, they were actually on the point of arresting him, when somebody was so struck with the expression of horror still reflected in the dead man’s eyes, that he was impelled to follow the direction of the look, the trajectory, so to speak, and saw, at the culminating point, a monstrous, and horrible spider. When he had caught sight of it, the old man had died of fright; syncope, sudden stopping of the heart, that sort of thing is well-known.”

        “What you tell me is strange,” said Claude thoughtfully. “Now I remember a detail to which I attached no importance, and to which Mère Chagne called my attention. M de Marbois, my father, had his head hidden under his arm when we found him, so firmly too, that when I put him on the bed I had to make two attempts to bring his arm back to its normal position.”

        “Ah!” exclaimed M. Coutelet, triumphantly, “here is something definite. We must follow that clue. Come with me.”

        They turned on their steps, and went back to the library. M. Coutelet placed himself opposite the bookcase, standing in the same position that M. de Marbois must have done, when he fell, and looked straight ahead, to the right, to the left, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, shook his head. But as he looked down at his feet, he saw the book that had not been picked up, and said:

        “Your father has the same taste as you, he was reading Apparition!”

        “Can it be that which impressed him to such an extent?” murmured Claude.

        “You surely don’t think that,” answered M. Coutelet with a smile.

        “I’m not thinking, I’m asking?” Claude corrected him.

        “No,” M. Coutelet assured him, “we must look elsewhere.”

        “Then we will look,” answered Claude, “But excuse me if I do not go to the gate with you; my father might be wanting me.”

XV

        Mère Chagne kept Claude company by his father’s bedside for several hours. When night came on, she left them. At once, M de Marbois, who until then had appeared to be sleeping, tried to get up. Claude stopped him.

        “Are you not comfortable here? Where would you be better? You yourself assured me this was my mother’s favorite room; it must be full of memories for you…”

        “I wish to get up,” said M. de Marbois decidedly. “I wish to leave this house. You will never hear of me again. …I will leave you all I possess.”

        “Why speak of departure, of exile and of giving me all your fortune? On the contrary you will remain here.”

        “Yes, yes,” murmured M. de Marbois, “you want a public confession…Yesterday, when I arrived, I felt that you knew. …That portrait, the book on my table…the telegram…this room where you have forced me to sleep…”

        “A portrait? A book? A telegram?...There is only mother’s portrait here; I could not possibly tell you what book I put on your table, and as for the telegram, I have not received one since I came to Trois-Tourelles…”

        “Your silent entry…your challenge…” went on M. de Marbois.

        Claude appeared lost in amazement.

        “I came in? I spoke to you? How could I have done? After taking you to your room, I went out with M. Coutelet, and did not see you again.”

        “You did not come back here?”

        “No.”

        “You did not show me a photograph?”

        “Certainly not.”

        “You did not tell me some one had forced open the writing-desk?”

        “I said to you: ‘Father, this your room; sleep well, and if you want anything call me.’ I said nothing else.”

        “What is the good of lying, and speaking so kindly to me?” murmured M. de Marbois.

        “Why should I lie, and why should I speak to you other than I do? By the way, you mentioned the writing-desk.  Would you let me have the key of it?”

        “It is in the lock,” said M. de Marbois in a voice that was hardly audible.

        Claude went to the next room, opened the desk, and took out a piece of paper:

        “Do you mean this?”

        M. de Marbois uttered a cry:

        “Give it to me.”

        “Here it is.”

        He read the telegram and was about to crumple it in his fingers. Claude took it from him in the most natural way and replaced it where he had found it, then, as he heard M. Coutelet talking to Mère Chagne in the garden, he went to meet him.

        “How’s the patient?” asked the old man.

        “Not very well. After a few hours’ sleep he woke in a state of great excitement. He tries to get up, utters words that seem senseless to me, cries that he is caught in a trap…”

        “The devil!” ejaculated M. Coutelet, “that looks like the mania of persecution.”

        “Is that serious?”

        M. Coutelet pursed up his lips without replying.

        They had reached the door. Seated on his bed, his knees drawn up under his chin, M. de Marbois’ face was hidden in his hands. At the sound of their footsteps, he jerked upright; M. Coutelet was struck by the violent start, but without showing it, began a friendly conversation with him, in which he provided both questions and answers. M. de Marbois seemed oblivious of everything. His eyes, now fixed in a glare, now roving round, refused to meet another’s. Once, wishing to force him to look him in the face, M. Coutelet caught hold of his shoulder. But he threw himself back with a scream, and, as the apothecary attempted to continue the conversation, he replied in a plaintive voice:

        “I remember nothing…between the time when I undressed, and when I waked up in my bed, there is a gap…a great gap…”

        “Yet,” put in Claude, “were you not telling me just now that some one had followed you into this room?”

        “I can’t remember…”

        “You also said something about a book…”

        “Do what you like,” stammered M. de Marbois, closing his eyes, “I am waiting…”

        “What are you waiting for?” asked M. Coutelet, curious to find what the irrelevant reply meant.

        M. de Marbois jerked his head towards Claude:

        “He knows…”

        M. Coutelet thought all persistence useless, said a few more encouraging words, and signed to Claude to follow him into the library:

        “What is your opinion?” asked Claude as soon as they were alone:

        “Not very encouraging,” grunted the apothecary, in the tone of a man worried by thoughts he would prefer not to express. He rubbed his chin, tapped his finger-tips on the books that lay upon the table.

        “You are not anxious in any way?” asked Claude. His quiet manner induced Coutelet to reply:

        “Yes, my boy, I am, and seriously too. …I am no savant, my science does not go much higher than that of a quack, but a quack sees things in the true light very often, because, when making a diagnosis, he often does not bother about the exceptions that worry the doctors…You can therefore accept my opinion, with reservations…although…Anyhow, were I in your place, I should send for a specialist from Paris…This morning it looked like a delirium brought on by a bad dream, or by hallucination when in a waking state…Now I fear the cause of the trouble is more deeply seated. A bad dream does not last four and twenty hours, daylight disposes of the fancies bred of night, and it is the same with hallucination…”

        “But then,” murmured Claude, “do you mean that my father is…”

        The door opened violently: M. de Marbois appeared:

        “What are you waiting for? Do I look like a man who is trying to escape? I am ready, take me away. But no more pretense, no more plotting. Let us have done with it, I am here!”

        He stretched out his arms and crossed his wrists. Claude was about to reply, M. Coutelet forestalled him:

        “Of course.”

        M. de Marbois went back into his room; Claude looked at the apothecary:

        “Why did you say that?”

        “Because you must never contradict patients like that. You must not argue with a man who has a fixed idea in his head. The words your father said are evidently the result of such a thought…if you can call such a disconcerting and fantastic jumble by such a name…But do we know what that thought is? …And if we knew it what good would it be to reason, where reason no longer is.”

        “Oh!” ejaculated Claude with a start.

        This time the word had been said. After having turned it round and round in his mouth, and kept it back on his lips, old Coutelet felt relieved at having let it out, and began a long speech.

        In the mediocrity of his present existence, the honest fellow had never forgotten the ambitions of his youth. At the back of his little shop, where all his knowledge resolved itself into the compounding of ointments and pills, commonplace duties, almost the same as those of  a very fussy grocer, he loved to embellish his conversation with the souvenirs of his student days. A passion to show off his learning was rather a weak spot with him. Thus, forgetting that he was speaking of a father to his son he began a veritable lecture:

        “What is madness? A lesion, more or less serious of the intellectual and mental faculties? The causes of it? So diverse in their kinds that I will not try to explain them to you.

        “Here we have before us one who believes himself to be the victim of persecution; his conversation, his gestures, his attitude, everything point to it. The crisis now taking place is nothing but the climax of a thousand small crises that have already taken place without our knowledge.

        “Furious as he was a few moments since, he is perhaps calm at this very moment. A deceiving calm that the smallest excitement would break. For these sufferers, forgetfulness is only momentary. That is why I advise you not to allude to anything that has taken place when you return to him…Now I tell you once again, the only person who can decide the matter is a specialist. Believe me, it would be wise to send for one at once…What about Dr. Charlier, for instance…I mention him…but if you have any one else to suggest…”

        “Not in the least…If you really consider it necessary to send for him…”

        “Indispensably so...”

        “Then will you be good enough to send for him?”

        “He can get here within forty-eight hours.”

        “And,” said Claude slowly, “what do you think he will order?”

        “Confinement in an asylum without the slightest doubt.”

        “How awful!” murmured Claude, hiding his face in his hands.

        But behind them, he began to laugh so hard, that he had to bite his lips in order to stop.

XVI

        INSTEAD of returning to M. de Marbois’ room, Claude went round, crossed a passage, and looked through a keyhole. Standing before the window, M. de Marbois was looking out into the garden, without daring, however, to go close up where he could be seen in the broad daylight. Now and then a shudder convulsed him, and he made as though to hide his face behind his arm again in the same way that had struck Mère Chagne so much. Then he drew a hand across the back of his neck, and a hoarse cry escaped him. Suddenly he began to run round and round the room, hitting at the wall with his fists:

        Claude sneered:

        “Growl away, bang away, the four walls are strong!”

        This state of panic, which resembled that of a trapped beast, was followed by exhaustion, and flinging himself into an armchair M. de Marbois began to mutter unintelligible words.

        “Oh!” thought Claude, “things are moving too rapidly, much too rapidly!”

        His hate was counting on a more long-drawn-out feast. If he had overcome his desire to kill the evening before, it was in order to gloat over his victory, to taste its delights, to keep it going as he liked with his alternate kind words and threats.

        A moment ago when M. Coutelet had mentioned the word asylum, he had laughed in his sleeve, because he knew, that in spite of appearances, M. de Marbois was not mad, and that uncertainty as to whether he was trying to spare him or ruin him, was the only reason for his incoherent replies, his fits of rage, and half-avowals which none but he himself could understand.

        Now he began to wonder whether the old man was right, whether he was assisting at the shipwreck of that unyielding sanity the serenity of which had never been disturbed by any threat. If that were the case, good-by to punishment. In a few hours M. de Marbois would be nothing but a rag of humanity; you could insult, ill-treat, and take him away, without his realizing anything.

        Truly, if his vengeance were to end at that, what a sell! It would be better to strike while a glimmer of reason remained. At least he would taste the physical joy of killing; that it would only last for a moment, he knew; but what a moment, and what a joy!

        While he was thinking these things, M. de Marbois turned round and he saw his face in the full light of day.

        These hours of waiting had turned him from the strong, handsome man that he was only yesterday, into an old one. His body was bent, his hands hung limp; under the open shirt collar his neck looked stringy; his cheek-bones stood out, his cheeks had fallen in, and his dim eyes looked upwards like the eyes of a condemned man on his way to the scaffold.

        The sight was sweet to Claude! Truly he had accomplished a great work! He, the weak creature, whose opinion, whose requests, whose presence, even was despised; he who had gone through life as though apologizing for being there at all; he who was filled with wonder at the least bold move, he had done this thing!

        He would have liked people to be able to see him confront this man and to say to them: “Which of us is afraid now, he or I?”

        And yet he had not the courage to push open the door. Broken as he was M. de Marbois still dominated him. No one can tremble during twenty years at the mere sight of a person, without something of that fear remaining behind; it is long before the dog turned wolf again does not start at the sound of the whip, and oppressed peoples, even in apparent revolt, keep, for generations, the frightened timidity of slaves.

        M. de Marbois leaped to his feet, ran to the window, and opened it.  Claude thought he was going to throw himself out and have done with it… Fear of this dispersed all other fears, and he rushed into the room. Surprised at the suddenness of his appearance, M. de Marbois stopped.

        “Ouf!” sighed Claude, “you did give me a fright?”

        The words were simple, even affectionate, and in no way differed from those he had spoken since the day before. But his tone was so pointed that M. de Marbois felt his flesh go icy cold. Besides, Claude had given up pretending. After looking at his father from head to foot with the cynical air of a horse-dealer, he sat astride the arm of a chair and remarked:

        “Well, and how goes it?”

        M. de Marbois looked hard at the door.

        “Ah, yes,” said Claude, as he went to close it, “you are expecting a visitor, I believe? But he will not be here yet awhile… Just a little later…”

        M. de Marbois did not move; Claude pointed to a chair opposite his:

        “We are in no hurry; we have so much to say to one another.”

        “Now confess that you were surprised at my kindness this morning. You said to yourself: ‘that fellow is going off his head! After trying to kill me here he is, surrounding me with the tenderest care; after accusing me of a crime he makes not the least allusion to it.’ This sort of thing is enough to unhinge the most well-balanced brain. The whole thing is so bewildering, I wouldn’t mind betting that you have gone so far as to ask yourself if you are not the one to be going out of your mind; and if the scene that took place were not a bad dream? …That’s it, isn’t it? I have guessed; you are hesitating between the real and the unreal; at this very moment you cannot make up your mind… It must be a very unpleasant sensation not to be sure of one’s sanity… You say no word but your hands are eloquent. Come! A little more nerve! Devil take it, control yourself! You are going to need all your courage, for what you have seen and heard is nothing to what remains for you to see and hear.

        “And first of all let me explain.

        “If I spared you last night, it was not because of any fine feeling. Pity is unknown to me; from whom should I have learned it? …I had made up my mind to make you go mad, and ’pon my soul you were on the right track. I bet that at this moment you would not dare assert that I came into your room last night, nor to deny it? …My wish was that you should lose you reason slowly with here and there a lucid interval, that you should feel madness prowling around you, full of temptations and threats, something in the nature of what I have endured for such long years…only more so.

        “But you really are not the strong-minded person I thought you! You staggered at the first onslaught…it’s hardly conceivable to one who knew you for such a devil of a fellow! But there! you would have been raving mad in less than forty-eight hours on the treatment I had prescribed for you! A little while since, I was watching you through this keyhole; you were pitiable. You did not think that any one could see you, did you? Now that is exactly what is worrying me, for it points to a terrific mental collapse in you. Suppose that some body, a detective, for instance, had been watching you instead of me…it would have settled his conviction, and you would have been done for… In the same way, so I’ve been told, examining magistrates have a certain number of tests, more or less infallible, calculated to make their prisoners confess; cross-examination at night, for instance, by the dim light of one lamp. Darkness…Silence…what auxillaries!  …There is also physical fatigue. They forget to supply the accused with a chair, they keep him standing for one hour, two hours, and when, exhausted, he asks to sit down, they take no notice and go on with the inquiry…

        “I should have made a good examining magistrate. But with a criminal like you there wouldn’t have been much pleasure in it; it is too easy. Think what you confessed when that good man, M. Coutelet, was here!”

        For the first time M. de Marbois opened his lips:

        “I?”

        “Yes, indeed, in so many words. Only it never entered the head of that most excellent man that you were a murderer, and he put it down to mania; a particular kind of mania, lasting and dangerous… He even gave it a name; the mania of persecution.   And, as you know, when a doctor…and he is that to all extents and purposes…gives a name to an illness, the patient is bound to consent to have it.”

        This jest seemed to him such a merry one, that he burst into laughter, slapping his knees:

        “Whatever fault I may have committed,” began M. de Marbois.

        “Fault? Gad, you are modest!”

        “Whatever crime,” the wretched man corrected himself.

        “That’s better,” exclaimed Claude.

        “Remember that your mother…”

        As the words left his mouth Claude rushed at him with uplifted hand:

        “Don’t bring her name into all this! I can guess what you are coward enough to suggest, but I will not allow it! Not much! You would like to make me believe that she was your accomplice…”

        “That is not what I was about to say,” murmured M. de Marbois. “Remember that your mother bore my name…that it is yours, too…”

        “Ah!” exclaimed Claude with a sigh of relief, “that is good to hear! You are not as mad as I thought, indeed you are not mad at all, since in the middle of such an upheaval you can still find arguments that might convince any one except myself. Your name? It is not part of me any more than the clothing I wear. It is not my name, I will have none of it. It can be dragged in the gutter without a spatter of dirt touching me. To prove that you are nothing to me, I have only to mention two dates, the date of your marriage, and the date of my birth. No, really, if you have nothing better to offer me…”

        As he spoke, he got up, and walked slowly up and down the room; M. de Marbois sat with bent head, lost in meditation. But in reality he was on the alert. His muscles, which an instant before, had appeared so slack, were gradually becoming taut. By imperceptible jerks he brought his elbows to rest on the arms of the chair again. He leaned against the flat of it, and placed his feet flat on the carpet. Soon his position was adjusted, and as Claude turned his back on him, he raised himself on his hands.

        “Hi there!” cried Claude suddenly, facing round on him. “You cannot get rid of me like you did of M. Deguy! I am young and suspicious… And what would be the good of that? After you’ve done for me as well? A fine advance indeed! I have taken my precautions, my proofs are in a safe place…”

        He lied with contemptuous assurance. M. de Marbois realized that he was the weaker and that it was necessary to gain time. However complete Claude’s calm might be, he guessed it was but short-lived, and that one of the fits of excitement which he had so often witnessed would suddenly take its place. Then the rôles would be reversed. He would seize him with both hands, Chagne and his wife would come rushing up in answer to his shouts, and it would be proved that the young fellow was mad… If that were not sufficient, if the terrified people hesitated to separate them…well then…he would press…he would press…like the other…

        At the thought a faint smile came to his lips. But, already Claude had a new idea and went on:

        “Come, we have wasted time enough already! You will realize that I did not come here without knowing what I was about. I have my plan, and will tell it to you. In two days, Dr. Charlier will be my guest. He is a well-known mental specialist, a great celebrity, world famous. Between now and then you must have made up your mind. I might impose my will upon you; I leave you to choose. You see, I am generous… When I say choose, I do not mean that exactly. I offer you two solutions. Either you will continue to act madness, and you are such a good actor that the great man will be taken in, or you will confess, …and that means a cell…and I need not tell you what will follow…

        “Until then I will keep you company. Don’t be afraid. I shall not be in your way. If you care for conversation, we will talk. If you prefer silence you shall not hear the sound of my voice. I do not mind one way or the other, and shall be equally delighted to see the handcuffs put on you or the strait-waistcoat. And now allow me to rest, for these two days have rather tried my nerves.”

        He sat down in an armchair, and stretched out his legs on another.

        At mid-day, Mère Chagne brought in lunch, and laid the table for two. Claude deliberately unfolded his napkin, and proferred the dish.

        “A little of this excellent fish?”

        M. de Marbois pushed the dish away.

        “Come, monsieur,” said Mère Chagne, “you must eat, it will make you strong; be good.”

        And as he sat hunching up his shoulders, she persisted in the sing-song baby voice with which you encourage a sulky child:

        “It is good, it is very good!”

        He thumped the table with his fist:

        “Get out you old witch! Get out, the whole lot of you!”

        Mère Chagne stood still in blank amazement holding out a filet of sole on the end of a fork. Claude winked at her reassuringly and said in a low voice:

        “Do not wait, Mère Chagne…I will get him to eat when he is quieter.”

        With his fingers gripping the cloth, grasping his knife with trembling hand, M. de Marbois cast furious glances around him. Claude waited until the worthy soul had closed the door behind her, and remarked:

        “You vote for madness then? Very well, it is your concern.” He then began to eat again. He had never felt so light-hearted. Calm descended on him. He reveled in its freshness, and in the mentality of a man who has nothing left to desire. The far-off past, veiled in doubt, the horror-laden days preceding the revelation which had devastated his reason, withdrew to make way for perfect peace.

        When he had finished his meal, he folded his napkin, rubbed his hands, and with the little shiver down his back which follows on a well-digested meal, he looked out at the garden where rain had brightened up the yellow of the gravel paths, the bronze of the leaves and the green of the grass, and rejoiced at the thought of the coming winter.

        Soon the white frost would powder the countryside, the sound of sabots clattering along the hard roads would be heard, the oxen, would come along, enveloped in clouds of steam, ice would cover the pond, and, quietly seated by his fireside, he would watch the dance of the flames in the black depth of the hearth.

        After he had gazed earnestly at the picture conjured up in his mind, correcting and defining its details, and reveling in the delights of his freedom, the silence began to weigh on him.

        Truth to tell, M. de Marbois was most placid for a condemned man; it almost looked as though he realized nothing; and did not understand the suffering contained in the word “cell.”

        Therefore, in order to fill this gap, he began to talk, in the careless voice he had adopted about an hour ago.

        “A mad-house is not really so terrible after all. The companions one meets with there must be anything but dull. Some of them may be dangerous, no doubt, but once the fit is over, they become sociable again. The keepers are a little severe, perhaps, the shower bath? the strait-waistcoat? …Bah! when you were proposing to send me away to stay in one of these establishments, you did not trouble… I know that if you were classed as ‘dangerous’ you would enjoy…if I may say so…a special treatment, for, knowing you as I do, you would prefer isolation in a padded cell to tiresome promiscuity…”

        “Scoundrel!” growled M. de Marbois, seizing a knife that lay on the table.

        Claude burst into a fit of laughter:

        “What a pity there is no one to hear you! Shout, threaten, rouse the village, don’t let that worry you. Before long Dr. Charlier will be here, and it would be unfortunate if we had made him come here for nothing. But spare yourself the trouble of brandishing that weapon—the real knife is in my pocket. That one has only got a rotten silver blade. Ah, yes! I’m not tired of life yet. Once I could not understand why you cared so much about it; since this morning I do. The parts are reversed, that’s all…you in prison, and I free. What a juggling of fate! When you go away I’ll come and see you there, now and then we will exchange pleasant remarks on either side of the bars, and I will see that you lack nothing. People will say, “What a good son!”

        He leaned his clenched fists on the table, and bending over with a terrible expression suddenly appearing on his face, added:

        “But you and alone know what that means.”

        M. de Marbois ground his teeth. Claude laughed the louder:

        “The cleverest might well be taken in; you are such a good actor. You must behave just like that, and in no other way before Dr. Charlier. At this moment your expression is splendid. I am not lying…look at yourself in that glass; it is not a deceptive glass, it was the first to tell me the beginning of your life story and of mine. Time has not dimmed the clearness of it. Although the years have tarnished it, they could not wipe away the traces of the faces it reflected. Close beside your evil countenance I see that of two souls, my mother and M. Deguy. Take care, they are watching you; there are three of us around you, and those whose spirits alone are present are not the least to be feared.”

        M. de Marbois lifted a chair and sent it crashing into the mirror. Claude looked at the fragments of glass that lay scattered on the floor, and shook his head:

        “The dead are still there, just the same; ask M. Coutelet.”

        The apothecary had just opened the door; Claude explained matters to him in a pitiful voice.

        “He is rather excited, but he’s better now, are you not, father?”

        M. de Marbois threw himself on the bed and hid his face in the pillow.

        “Yes,” went on Claude, “it happened suddenly, and quite unprovoked. Mère Chagny and I were pressing him to eat, when he began to wave his arms about and to shout.”

        “Alas!” sighed the apothecary, “I was right. Things are turning out as I expected. Of all the manias this particular one is the most terrible. When it gets hold of a person, it effaces everything. The patient lives in a constant state of terror ceaselessly obsessed by fears for what he considers his safety. He forgets to eat and drink, so that he may watch the deeds and words of those who surround him; he rushes at his keeper just at the very moment when he appears to have calmed down. I have brought the rope with me, if he becomes dangerous we can pinion him.”

        “Have you got it with you?”

        “Here it is.”

        Claude opened the parcel, took out the rope, and, with trembling hands, began to feel it. He was filled with such intense joy that he turned away his head to hide the gleam in his eyes. As he helped him, M. Coutelet explained the way to use it:

        “First of all you get hold of his feet, and fasten it in a slip knot; then you bring the rope up and put it once around the hips, then up to shoulders, round the arms, and finish off at the wrists. Thus bound the patient can only wriggle. It is the same principle as the strait-waistcoat.”

        “Perhaps now that he is quiet it would be a good thing to fix it on,” suggested Claude.

        “I would rather you waited a little,” replied M. Coutelet. “By giving him a good dose of chloral we shall gain a few hours. In the meantime, Dr. Charlier will have arrived.”

        “Do you think he will?”

        “He will be up at Trois-Tourelles to-morrow evening.”

        Claude went up to the bed, and leaning over M. de Marbois, said in the same tone as Mère Chagne when she had been urging him to eat:

        “Do you hear? To-morrow the good doctor will be hear to look after you.”

        Leaning closer, he whispered:

        “A cell, furnished with strong bars, where you will be able to weep and howl at your ease.”

        He expected an explosion of rage, which would give him an immediate pretext for pinioning him, but M. de Marbois never stirred. The apothecary laid the rope on the couch, uncorked the bottle of medicine, and gave instructions to leave nothing he could use as a weapon, within the patient’s reach, and took his departure.

        During the night, Claude kept silence. Darkness made him circumspect. Shadows flitted about the room. All around him was a kind of gentle gliding, a murmur of voices seeking one another, and, with his hands stretched out in the empty space, he seemed to take hold of cold gossamer veils. The keenness of his senses was so acute that he saw in the darkness, his ears heard infinitesimal sounds in the silence and, through the walls, the odors of the earth caressed his nostrils.

        The sensation was delicious yet terrible. It made him doubt the reality of his existence and ask himself if he were not already in the kingdom of disembodied shapes, a wandering soul among other eager souls, seeking a body into which he could creep for the space of a second. He saluted the phantoms as they passed by; some of them smiled at him, others continued on their way. They were a mute, intangible multitude, the aggregation of millions of vapors, which had once been men. He recognized, but could assign to them neither features nor color. Once he stretched out his arms to a floating form that seemed more ethereal than the others, and cried:

        “It is it you, mother?”

        And he thought he heard the plaintive voice reply:

        “Yes, my child, it is I.”

        Again he spoke, his eyes filled with tears:

        “Oh, mother! What ought I to do?”

        The form had already faded away. He thought she had vanished in order to allow him to do the thing he wished. Besides, dawn was breaking, spreading before the window the outline of trees, the masses of cloud, and the wound which the rising sun makes in the side of the somber sky.

        Then the notion of reality came to him again, and he went up to the bed on which M. de Marbois lay. M. de Marbois was asleep. His breast rose and fell to his quiet breathing, his hands lay limp, and, judging by his calm face, it was evident that no painful though troubled his sleep.

        This discovery made him pensive. He compared that other’s state of mind with his own. He, possessed by the idea of justice alone, was troubled; with retribution at hand, the other man slept.

        Soon, the house awoke; the stable doors opened, the dog barked, he heard the cries of the herds, and the voice of Mère Chagne as she scattered bread to her fowls. Then a train passed, whistling, and the church bell tinkled the call to matins.

        “Come,” said he, tapping M. de Marbois on the shoulder, “you have slept long enough. Make the most of the hours of freedom left to you and look upon the things you will see no more.”

        The face M. de Marbois turned to him was calm. He threw back the bedclothes, got up, and began to dress. After he had washed himself with much splashing, he brushed his hair, polished his nails on the palm of his hand, took a book, and sat down near the window. Yesterday’s pallor had disappeared; his eyes were clear, his gestures tranquil.

        Claude began to fidget round him:

        “You haven’t forgotten that it’s this evening?”

        M. de Marbois lifted his eyes from his book, shook his head, and became engrossed in his reading again.

        After a long silence, broken only by the rustle of the pages, Claude remarked again, as though he were talking to himself:

        “I mustn’t forget to tell Père Chagne to get the omnibus ready, because they will be taking you away immediately, I imagine.”

        “What are you talking about?” inquired M. de Marbois without interrupting his reading.

        “I am curious to see how you behave before Dr. Charlier,” went on Claude. “That man’s eyes will seek out the very depths of your soul.”

        And as M. de Marbois still kept an obstinate silence, he went on talking about the cell, the shower-bath, the straight-waistcoat, detailing the horrors of perpetual confinement, the shrieks and rages of the lunatics, the anguish of feeling one’s reason crumble.

        “If the torture seems too great, you can always confess…in that way you will escape from this prison, and from life.”

        M. de Marbois went on reading, and occasionally a smile appeared on his lips. Mère Chagne brought in lunch at twelve o’clock. M. de Marbois put a marker in his book and sat down at table.

        “Are you hungry by chance?” sneered Claude, almost suffocating with rage.

        “Why should I not be hungry?” answered M. de Marbois.

        “I am glad to see Monsieur is well again,” put in Mère Chagne.

        “Excellent woman!” remarked M. de Marbois, gratefully pouring himself out a glass of wine. “But you are not eating anything, Claude; you have tired yourself looking after me, my son.”

        With set teeth and hands gripping the tablecloth, Claude stared at the man who mocked him. In order to hide his agitation, he tried to swallow a piece of bread, but it stuck in his throat. M. de Marbois talked affectionately to him, and ate of everything on the table.

        He stopped speaking as soon as Mère Chagne went out, and went on with his reading.

        At about four o’clock it began to grow dark. In the most ordinary voice M. de Marbois asked Claude to light the lamp. He replied that he was quite comfortable as he was, and that darkness was conducive to thought.

        “As you please,” answered M. de Marbois, shutting up his book.

        And they sat in silence, side by side, while the sky grew dark. The clock struck seven.

        “Come,” said Claude, “this is the end. I am obliged to you for having spared me your lamentations, not that they would have moved me to pity, but sensitive and excitable as I know myself to be, I might have used harsh methods in compelling you to keep silence. So we will waste no time over these little formalities. The Paris express arrives at 7.15. I am going to pinion you, but not too tightly. When the doctor and M. Coutelet come, they will find you ready to start. Let us make haste, the train is whistling: in less than ten minutes they will be here. Your feet first…don’t you remember M. Coutelet’s explanation? …”

        “Yes, yes,” affirmed M. de Marbois.

        “Well? ...”

        “Well, I’ve changed my mind; that is all.”

        Claude threw down the rope which he was preparing to place in position:

        “You prefer to confess?”

        “No.”

        “Then I shall have to accuse you?”

        “And what then?”

        “What then?...the law courts…a trip…a trip at break of day, or at least, penal servitude…a pleasant prospect.”

        “Not so bad as you say…Only it is nothing but a dream. The law is not indulgent, but it knows how to make the best of a bad job. Do the same. Have you never heard of what is called prescription? ...Even though they proved my guilt a hundred times over…and that is not so easy as you seem to think…I have nothing to fear from the law. Had I invented that law myself, I could not have done it better…That I shall have to render up my account some day, elsewhere, is a matter that concerns the devil and myself. In the meantime, what is the good of making a scandal? You can make up your mind to it, my boy, I’m free and intend to remain free. Let me pass. When these medical gentlemen arrive, you will make them my excuses for having disturbed them, and if, at all costs, they want to prove how clever they are, they can always busy themselves with you.”

        Claude listened, speechless with amazement. Suddenly, as M. de Marbois stretched out a hand to open the door, he leaped upon him with such fury, that M. de Marbois, without being able to defend himself, fell backwards. But, hardly had his shoulders touched the floor, than he flung the other off with a jerk, and they began to fight without a word or a cry, arms and legs interlocked, a terrible couple, so closely united that they became one moving mass, now rearing upright, now staggering against the walls that shook under the impact.

        Sometimes the violence of a rush, the agony of a bite, separated them: in the darkness they cursed and defied each other and quickly closed up again. After a bite that filled his mouth with the taste of blood, Claude attempted nothing else. With his head held firmly under the arm of M. de Marbois, he tore at the cloth that protected the flesh beneath. Presently, half-suffocated, he ceased his attack. M. de Marbois put a knee on his chest, and sneered, as fresh as though it had all been in play, his strong hands knotted around the thin neck:

        “And now?”

        Claude panted without replying; M. de Marbois believed him to be at his mercy and loosened his grip.

        “Fool!” shouted Claude, raising himself with one bound, and burying the knife, which since yesterday had lain concealed in his pocket, in his neck.

        A jet of blood gushed out, splashing his face. Then, every particle of reason that remained in him vanished, and he began to rain blows on the still face, striking with the handle of the knife, with the blade, heaping insults upon it, pinching it with his streaming fingers, seizing the head by the hair and banging it on the floor, and mingling plaintive cries with his yells, as though to offer the dead man to the spirits of the departed.

        “Are you content? Now my hands are clean. …There is no more shadow. …All is clear, all is beautiful!”

        Mère Chagne called from below:

        “Are you there, master?”

        He did not hear her, and went on raving:

        “He would not die, the swine! he held out, but so did I! For twenty years, I have been living for this moment! How well we shall sleep to-night! …”

        He sat down on the ground, and drew the back of his hand across his brow with an “ouf!” of relief, like a laborer, laying down his burden. His muscles relaxed deliciously, he was growing sleepy, and he sat there like a faithful watch-dog, proud of having defended his house.

        Mère Chagne tapped discreetly at the door, and getting no reply, opened it. At first, in spite of the lamp, she could not see anything, and said, as she allowed Dr. Charlier and M. Coutelet to pass:

        “I thought as much…he has fallen asleep, poor fellow!”

        Claude saw the group, and, without rising, asked them to come in.

        “Come in, gentlemen, come in! This will interest you, no doubt. Good evening, M. Coutelet.”

        He rose to his knees and they saw his blood-bespattered face. The apothecary started back:

        “Well, M. Coutelet,” cried Claude, surprised, “are you offended with me, that you don’t shake hands?”

        He looked attentively at his hands on which the blood was coagulating in great patches:

        “Is that what you object to? …My dear sir, I am what I am; you must take what friendship I offer or go away.”

        Already he was getting up to cast forth the intruders, when his eyes fell on the corpse, and he stopped uncertainly. Blood was everywhere, on the floors, on the walls, on the furniture, the window panes…not a thing, not a corner that did not bear its scarlet mark, even his head and body were plastered with it.

        “Wretched man!” cried M. Coutelet, while Dr. Charlier, horrified, bent over the dead body, and Mère Chagne took to her heels.

        “Well,” said Claude, “what’s the matter with you all? Don’t you know who that is? It is Marbois the murderer, and I have killed him. Since when does one allow a criminal to remain at large? Kill, and thou shalt be killed. Yes, gentlemen, that is my rule. Applaud the chance that has permitted me to punish the guilty on this very spot. His death will appease two souls here. You do not see them; I see them, I hear them. If you only knew what they say to me! Just now, they were laughing; it was the first time I had ever heard them laugh, I their son! A son who never heard the laugh of his parents…is such a thing credible?”

        Dr. Charlier tried to grasp the arm brandishing the knife. He pulled it away, furiously.

        “You are not thinking of arresting me, when the murderer lies there? Why did you not get hold of him thirty years ago? For thirty years the bones of a dead man have lain rotting underground, a poor dead man, whom no one would avenge! But God be thanked, I was watching…”

        He thought a moment, and shrugged his shoulder indulgently:

        “After all you were not supposed to know; if things had not taken me into their confidence, I should never have known the secret. The story of this is more wonderful than all your science, M. Coutelet! I can tell it to you. But never repeat it! For, look you, I had but one love on earth, my mother, and it is of her I would speak with you. I would willingly give my hand to prevent the revelation of the slightest thing that might tarnish her memory. But first of all, who is that gentleman listening to me. …One of your friends? I can trust him?”

        His voice echoed weirdly in the room dimly lighted by Mère Chagne’s green-shaded lamp.

        “Truth came to me by paths as yet unknown of men. A new sense was offered me, as delicate as sight, as touch, as hearing.  Have you ever stopped to think, M. Coutelet, what a human being, gifted with a dog’s sense of smell, would be? How many things, hidden from us, would be made clear to him! The sense of which I speak is a thousand-fold richer; it is the sense of the unknown. Who possesses it possesses all things. Thanks to it I roam in the past as through a garden. One wish…one concentrated desire, and the present vanishes, I lose the shape of your faces…I no longer hear your breathing…a wonderful silence surrounds me…Hush! I enter the garden of the past…

        “A date; it is August 13, 1880. My mother is in sitting in her room. She is lost in thought, a book lying on her knees. How sad she looks, and how intently she listens! Yet the house is sleeping, and the wind is so light it hardly rustles the leaves of the trees. Her face contracts, she smiles; again her head droops. M. Deguy enters softly. He leans over her, strokes her hair, and whispers in her ear. She blushes. How quiet everything is, and how full of happiness. …The night is warm, yet my mother shivers. Then M. Deguy kisses her brow, and withdraws. She remains without moving, beside the window. Ten o’clock…eleven o’clock.  A shadow crosses the park. It goes its way rapidly, keeping close to the hedges, then once more the door opens, and the shadow appears. Don’t you recognize it? It is M. de Marbois. My mother turns away from him. Her terror amuses him. He speaks:

        “ ‘What are you afraid of? He’s asleep.’

        “She implores him:

        “ ‘Do go away!’

        “He reassures her:

        “ ‘No one can hear us. You must listen to me to-night. …Do you still refuse yourself? And yet you know quite well that one day, to-morrow perhaps…you will be mine. …You promised me. Then why, at this hour of love, do you turn away from me? Shall we wait until our youth fades…or is it that you no longer love me? The other did you say…? An old man who might be your father!’

        “She is about to reply. Suddenly they start upright. M. Deguy stands on the threshold, so deathly white that his silvery hair and the skin of his temples seem one. Amazement stuns him at first, then he demands:

        “ ‘What are you doing here?’

        “He says the words in a terrible voice; then in a pitiful tone,

        “ ‘Collette! Collette! is it possible!’

        “My mother does not speak. The man sneers. Then M. Deguy seizes a chair and brandishes it. But the man drags it out of his hands, grips hold of him with both arms, and presses. My mother sits there watching all this. She wants to scream. …Terror gags her and binds her feet. All the horror in the world looks out of her eyes. She hides her face in the palms of her hands, then presses them flat against her sides, as though to hide the sight from every portion of her being. The man still presses. He staggers, give way under the dead weight dragging on him, and the body of M. Deguy crashes to the ground, there, between the fallen chair, and the book that my mother has dropped.

        “Then my mother utters a terrible cry; the man puts his hand over her mouth and threatens:

        “ ‘If you say a word, I am lost, and you with me.’

        “She sinks on a couch, fainting. He carries her back to her bed, undresses her…naturally…to give the impression that she has heard nothing! Then he blows out the lamp, climbs over the balcony, drops into the shrubbery, and runs from lawn to lawn…so that he leaves no footmarks…scales the wall, and off he goes, away through the countryside.”

        As he spoke, drops of sweat gathered on his brow, and his voice grew hoarse; he bounded here and there, imitating gestures and facial expressions. It seemed as though he were possessed of a sacred frenzy, that in turn he was the dead man, the unconscious woman, the murderer, and he hurried over his story, hastening to the end, as though the fragile past might melt before his eyes.

        “Morning comes. Some one enters, and finds M. Deguy dead in the library, clad in trousers, dressing-gown, night-gown and slippers, like a man getting ready for bed.

        “Another date now…October 7, 1880! M. le Comte de Marbois marries Mlle. Colette Fagant. Ghastly, isn’t it? …No indeed, gentlemen, it is nothing. To marry the mistress of the man you have murdered? A very commonplace crime! Who can tell how many others of the same kind have been committed. Like wolves men devour each other. In the one case it is for the sake of a prey; in the other for the sake of a dowry. And, ma foi, M. Deguy’s fortune is no small matter! Millions, gentlemen, millions!  It is well worth strangling a man for. I tell you it is nothing, less than nothing! Before I became a judge have not I, too, desired to kill? You can hardly believe it, and yet…! One day I told a famous physician, and he did not believe me…if he had done, he would have had me locked up. And that would have been a great pity, as you are going to see.

        “For here is the third date, 12 April, 1881; my birthday. Count! from October to April…six months. The shadow begins to disperse for you as it did for me, does it not? And to think that no one else thought of making such a calculation! Why, of course! you’ve grasped it; I am the son of M. Deguy. When the murder was committed before her I was in my mother’s womb! Yes, my mother, my wretched mother saw that deed! She looked on, a horror-stricken witness at that horrible thing! And that is why I came into the world with a tortured soul, a desire to kill, and these red hands. But now they are white, they will always be white; they had to be washed: I have washed them. Look here, look here! See! …”

        He stretched his blood-stained hands above his head, moving them about, and uttering little cries of joy:

        Suddenly his face paled; he put out a hand, and stammered:

        “M. Coutelet? …Dr. Charlier?”

        Neither of the men answered. Two tears ran down his cheeks, and he said no more. Reason was returning to her place.

        A confused babel of voices came from the garden. The farm-people, and soon all the villagers had hastened thither in answer to the cries of Mère Chagne. Lighted lanterns darted about, men and women gesticulated and called one to another. The old people told the young all they knew of the by-gone tragedy, with muttered suspicions and vague threats, but without daring to go right up to the house which had been marked out for the second time by crime.

        In the room Claude still wept. Accustomed as he was to such scenes, Dr. Charlier could not control his emotion. M. Coutelet stood with bent head. The murder roused the most terrible doubts within him. Out of the chaos of words and incoherent visions, a logical evocation stood out. A thousand details, hitherto of no importance, struck him with strange force. As he looked back on his conversations with Claude, he discerned the gloomy travail that had been accomplished in his brain.

        Had not he himself, unconsciously, guided his research and awakened his suspicions? Wise and prudent man that he was, he had allowed himself to be tricked by a semimaniac, and he felt upon his old shoulders the weight of a dreadful responsibility.

        In a corner, leaning against the wall, Claude stood motionless.

        The contrast between his former vehemence and his present attitude was such that the doctor murmured:

        “Is he really mad, or is his madness feigned? If I thought there were a particle of truth in all this, I should ask myself whether it was not more a case for an examining magistrate than for me. What is your opinion, Monsieur? You have lived here for forty years. Have you ever heard any of the things to which this young fellow alludes? Is it true that a man was found dead on this spot?”

        “It is true,” answered M. Coutelet in a very low voice.

        “Did you know the mother?”

        M. Coutelet was about to reply. Claude stared fixedly at him.

        “Yes,” murmured the apothecary.

        “What sort of a woman was she?”

        This time an expression of despair came into Claude’s face. His lips moved, he clasped his hands, and held them out in a frantic gesture of appeal.

        “She was a delicate, gentle creature,” answered M. Coutelet, in a voice that shook with emotion. “Shy and charming, a good, loving, blameless mother. …She lived…I believe…a sinless life and died, as we say here, in a state of grace.”

        “And so what we have just listened to?...”

        “Is sheer madness. The crime and the story are the work of a madman…! And look, if we needed any further proof…”

        Suddenly abandoning his calm attitude, Claude burst into a fit of laughter, then rolled over on the floor, clawing at his face with his hands.

        “The rope, quickly!” ordered the doctor.

        They seized him, pinioned him in a trice, and laid him on the couch; he still yelled, and struggled to free himself.

        Dr. Charlier made sure that the rope was firmly fixed, and said with a sigh:

        “It had been brought for the father, and has been used on the son!”

        “Alas,” said M. Coutelet.

        And, as he bent over Claude to free his head which was buried under the cushions, he heard him murmur in a gentle, graceful voice:

        “You are a good man, M. Coutelet!”

THE END  

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