"Monsieur did not know, perhaps—it was the chamber of Madame. Always Monsieur spends several hours a day there when he is in Paris, and always after he has performed at the theatre he returns immediately to sit there. No one else is allowed to enter; only I, when Monsieur is away, am permitted once a day to fill it with fresh flowers—flowers always the most expensive and rare. Ah, such devotion, and for the dead, too! One finds it seldom, indeed! It is the great artists only who can feel like that!"
She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, dropped me a curtsey, and withdrew. Feurgéres came in presently, and I avoided looking at him for the first few minutes. To tell the truth, there was a lump in my own throat. When he spoke, however, his tone was as usual.
"I shall ask you," he said, "to stay indoors, but to be prepared to start away at a moment's notice. I am going to make a few enquiries myself."
His voice drew my eyes to his face, and I was astonished at his appearance. The skin seemed tightly drawn about his cheeks, and he was very white. As though in contradiction to his ill-looks, however, his eyes were unusually brilliant and clear, and his manner almost buoyant.
"Forgive me, Monsieur Feurgéres," I said, "but it seems to me that you had better rest for a while. You have been travelling longer than I have, and you are tired."
He smiled at me almost gaily.
"On the contrary," he declared, "I never felt more vigorous. I——"
He stopped short, and walked the length of the room. When he returned he was very grave, but the smile was still upon his lips. He laid his hand almost affectionately upon my shoulder.
"My dear friend," he said softly, "I think that you are the only one to whom I have felt it possible to speak of the things which lie so near my heart. For I think that you, too, are one of those who know, and who must know, what it is to suffer. We who carry the iron in our hearts, you know, are sometimes drawn together. The things which we may hide from the world we cannot hide from one another. Only for you there is hope, for me there has been the wonderful past. People have pitied me often, my friend, for what they have called my lonely life. They little know! I am not a sentimentalist. I speak of real things. Isobel, my wife, died to the world and was buried. To me she lives always. Just now—I have been with her. She sat in her old chair, and her eyes smiled again their marvellous welcome to me. Only—and this is why I speak to you of these things—there was a difference."
He was silent for a few minutes. When he continued, his voice was a little softer but no less firm.