“Victor,” he said quickly, “you know the experiment M. Charcot tried yesterday when he made a hypnotized patient believe one person was another; I have told Mère Marchette that you are Pierre. You must take his place; come quickly.”
The young man drew back.
“I cannot,” he protested.
“You must,” Lommel returned, almost fiercely. “Come.”
VI.
It was with terrible inward misgiving that Jean and Victor entered the ward; but as soon as the eyes of Mère Marchette fell upon the latter they knew that the experiment was a success. Such a look of yearning love illumined the withered old features, such an unspeakable joy shone in the sunken eyes, such quivering eagerness was expressed by the outstretched hands, that the young men found their way to the bedside blinded by tears. An inarticulate cry, that was half moan and half sob, burst from the lips of Mère Marchette as Victor fell on his knees by the bedside. Carried out of himself by genuine feeling, the young man had no need to simulate the emotions necessary for the part he was playing. Seizing the wrinkled hand which lay before him on the bed he covered it with tears and kisses; then, with a cry of piercing sweetness, Mère Marchette flung herself forward into his arms.
“O Pierre, Pierre!” she sobbed. “Oh, the good God, the good God!”
She clasped her arms about his neck, she strained him to her breast, the feebleness of her dying embrace transformed to strength by the divine fervor of maternal love. She mingled her kisses with a soft and hardly articulate babble of endearing words; the terms which she had used over his cradle she mingled with the pet names of his childhood and the loving speech which belonged to maturer years. She held him away from her that she might look at him, and her eyes were holden so that she saw in his face the changes that her fancy had pictured in thinking of the real Pierre.
“Ah,” she said, “how brown thou hast grown; and thou art such a man now! Ah, thou rogue,” she went on, laughing softly, “I knew thou hadst grown a beard—and not a word of it in thy letters. But I knew.”
She put her thin fingers under his chin and with a sudden gravity lifted his face.