Madame X: a story of mother-love

ELEGIE ( From the French of Massenet ) Oh, Spring of days long ago, blooming and bright, Far have you fluttered away ! No more the skies azure light, caroling birds Waken and glisten for me ! Bearing all joy from my heart—Loved one ! How far from my life hast thou flown ! Vainly to me does the springtime return ! It brings thee never again—Dark is the sun ! Dead are the days of delight ! Cold is my heart and as dark as the grave ! Life is in vain—evermore !
A night lamp—the chosen companion of illness, misery and murder—burned dimly on a little table in the midst of a grim array of bottles and boxes. In a big armchair between the table and the bed, and within easy reach of both, sat a young man. It was his fourteenth night in that chair and he leaned his head back against the cushions in an attitude of utter exhaustion. The hands rested on the arms with the palms turned up. But the strong, clean-cut face—that for two weeks had been a mask of fear and suffering—was transfigured with joy and thanksgiving when he reached over every few minutes and touched the forehead of the little boy in the bed. There was moisture under the dark curls and the fever flush had given way to the pallor of weakness.
Louis Floriot was a man with steel nerves and an unbending will. Barely in his thirty-first year, he was Deputy Attorney of Paris, and in all the two weeks he had watched at the bedside of his boy he had not been ten seconds late at the opening of court in the morning. His work and his child were all that were left to him and he divided the day between them without a thought of himself. The woman that had made both dear to him was gone. He had loved the baby with almost more than a father's love because he was hers—theirs. He had slaved for fame and power to lay them at her feet as a proof of his love.
Two short years ago it would have been impossible to find a happier man within the girth of the seven seas. Then one night he had returned from his office too early—returned to find his life in ruins and his home made desolate. And she had fled from him into the night and had gone out of his life—but not out of his memory.