“Hope never fails me,” replied D'Esmonde, in a voice of bold and assured tone. “It is the only capital that humble men like myself possess; but we can draw upon it without limit. The fate of riches is often ruins, but there is no bankruptcy in hope. Time presses now,” said he, as if suddenly remembering himself; “I must see to this at once. When may I come again?”
“Whenever you like. I have much to say to you. I cannot tell you now how strangely you are mixed up in my fancy—it is but fancy, after all—with several scenes of terrible interest.”
“What!—how do you mean?” said D'Esmonde, turning hastily about
“I scarcely know where to begin, or how to separate truth from its counterfeit Your image is before me, at times and in places where you could not have been. Ay, even in the very crash and tumult of battle, as I remember once at Varenna, beside the Lake of Como. I could have sworn to have seen you cheering on the peasants to the attack.”
“What strange tricks imagination will play upon us!” broke in D'Ësmonde; but his voice faltered, and his pale cheek grew paler as he said the words.
“Then, again, in the Babli Palace at Milan, where I was brought as a prisoner, I saw you leave the council-chamber arm-in-arm with an Austrian Archduke. When I say I saw you, I mean as I now see you here,—more palpable to my eyes than when you sat beside my sick-bed at Verona.”
“Dreams,——dreams,” said D'Esmonde. “Such illusions bespeak a mind broken by sickness. Forget them, Dalton, if you would train your thoughts to higher uses.” And, so saying, in a tone of pride, the Abbé bowed, and passed out.
As D'Esmonde passed out into the street, Cahill joined him.
“Well,” cried the latter, “is it done?”
“Yes, Michel,” was the answer; “signed, and sealed, and witnessed in all form. By this document I am recognized as a member of his family, inheriting that which I shall never claim. No,” cried he, with exultation of voice and manner, “I want none of their possessions; I ask but to be accounted of their race and name; and yet the time may come when these conditions shall be reversed, and they who would scarcely own me to-day may plot and scheme to trace our relationship. Now for Rome. To-night—this very night—I set out. With this evidence of my station and fortune there can be no longer any obstacle. The struggle is past; now to enjoy the victory!”