Part 10

"It is Madelon and Félice," Roly explained.

"They! Here? Wait! I will give them a cursing to remember." But before the speaker could move he found his arms pinioned behind him and his own weapon pointed at his head. He uttered a squeak of amazement and terror. "Mon Dieu! What is this?"

"Shut up!" Roly dragged the old man from the window, stripped a thick curtain cord from its hook, and knotted his wrists together.

Alfred offered no resistance; a horrible fear had him by the throat; he hung like a sack in the younger man's grasp. His eyes alone retained their activity. These followed Van Dam in a horrified stare; they seemed about to emerge from their sockets.

Roly deposited his limp captive in a chair and, stepping to the window, tapped sharply. When Madelon looked up he signaled her to wait. The hall portières furnished another cord for Cousin Alfred's ankles, and a handkerchief served as a gag. As this was being adjusted, however, the captive quavered, hoarsely:

"Who--are you?"

"I?" Roly laughed. "Why, I am your cousin Emile!"

The householder voiced a thin shriek and began to plead for his life. Then the remnants of his strength escaped, leaving him a spineless heap in the great leather chair.

Van Dam bore him in his arms down the hall, searching for a place of concealment. This he found in a closet, the door of which he closed. Then he hastened back to the front entrance.

"You kept us waiting sufficiently," Madelon said, as he stepped aside for the two women to enter.

Roly's eyes were glued upon the taller of the two figures, but Félice seemed to take no heed of him. He heard her murmuring in a sick, eager voice:

"Emile! My own beloved! Emile!"

Madelon raised her hand in a warning gesture and the young man shrank closer into the shadows.

"Courage, dear!" she said to her companion. "We have arrived at last. A moment now and he will come." She half led, half supported the taller woman into the library. The next instant she was back at Van Dam's side. Drawing him into the parlor, across the hall, she exclaimed in a voice which showed that tears were in her eyes: "Thank Heaven, no one recognized us! But I was weak with fright. Oh! It was pitiful! I have wept at every step. She has been calling you like that, night and day. Go--quickly!" She removed his mask and thrust him into the hall.

This was the most embarrassing moment Van Dam had experienced thus far. He had been prepared to face eventual discovery, and had decided to make a clean breast of his part in this comedy when the necessary moment arrived, but--this was altogether different. Félice was ill, half-demented. What might be the effect upon her of this disclosure? There was nothing to do, however, but to face it out and to make the truth known as quickly and as gently as possible.

But as he entered the study he received a surprise that robbed the adventure of all its entertainment, that changed this comedy into a tragedy and humbled the man's reckless spirit.

III

Van Dam saw that which filled him with an aching pity; for, instead of a girl, he found awaiting him a frail, sweet-faced old woman whose fingers were locked as if in prayer, whose lips were murmuring the name of her son. Her hair, softer and finer than silken floss, was silvery white; her wistful, wrinkled countenance was ablaze with a glad excitement that made it glorious and holy. That which caused Van Dam's heart to melt and to turn away completely, however, was the fact that she was blind.

She had heard his step, muffled as it was in the inch-thick carpet, and rose with a tender cry, pausing with her arms outstretched, her body shaken by an ecstasy of yearning.

"Emile! Emile!" she whispered, and came toward him. Her sightless eyes were wet; she was trembling terribly.

Van Dam experienced a desire to flee. He tried to speak and to warn her off, but as the feeble figure swayed toward him, the age-old, appalling tragedy of mother love caused his throat to tighten. Then he took her hands in his; his arms enfolded her. She lay against his breast, weeping softly, gladly, while he bowed his head reverently over hers. Had his life depended upon his speaking, he could not have done so. He merely waited, with a sick feeling of dread, the instant of her awakening. He was vaguely surprised as moment followed moment and it did not come. Then he discovered the explanation. Grief had set her wits to wandering; days and weeks and months of yearning had burned away some part of her faculties, leaving her possessed by such a reasonless hunger that almost any object would have served to fill her want. He had heard of demented mothers whose minds had been saved by the substitution of a living for a dead child, and it seemed that this was a similar case; for she was flooded now with a supreme content and appeared to experience no suspicion of fraud.

The touch of her fluttering fingers on his cheek was like the caress of butterfly wings; her voice was soft; her words, though wandering, were tender and filled with such a heaven-born adoration that his distress was multiplied. This was her hour, he reflected. Perhaps an all-wise Providence had selected him to fill this part and to bring glory to her withered heart. At any rate, he would have been unspeakably cruel to disillusionize her.

He led her to a chair, then knelt and bowed his head to her straying fingers, murmuring those terms of endearment which cause a mother's breast to thrill. When he looked up to Madelon, at last, she saw that he was crying--quite like a little boy.

From the disconnected words that fell from the blind woman's lips he began, after a time, to piece the truth together.

Emile had been an only son, a paragon of manly virtues, the keeper of his mother's soul. There had come a great shock and a great disgrace that had evidently conspired to unseat her reason. She spoke indirectly of them, as a child marked by some prenatal influence recoils at contact with the cause of its infirmity. Then, it seemed, Madelon had come to watch over and to comfort her, filling a son's place with a daughter's devotion. There had been persecution, want, the loss of property through an enemy of whom the mother spoke ramblingly. Van Dam recollected the dried-up villain in the closet down the hall, and felt a flame of rage mount through him. He longed mightily to ask questions, to run the matter down without delay, but dared not, for he was in momentary dread that the imposture would be discovered. So he spoke as infrequently as possible, and substituted for words those gentle caresses and endearing attentions that are far more welcome to a starving heart. Madelon remained close by, adding a grain of comfort and encouragement now and then, and regarding Van Dam with a strangely bewildered attention.

But the mother was far from strong. Her excitement had wearied her, and now, with the relaxation of contentment, fatigue stole over her. She lay back among the soft cushions, her restless hands moving more slowly, her gentle voice stilled. She dozed at last, her face serene and beatific.

Madelon motioned to Van Dam, and he rose. Noiselessly they stole across the hall and into the drawing-room, leaving the placid figure in repose.

She turned upon him, saying, doubtfully: "With every moment you surprise me, Emile. You are not at all what I expected, not at all the cousin of whom I have heard so much! Even in looks you seem--how shall I say it?--strange."