The next day she had recovered her strength, but was violently insane. They lived in the château a month and there was no change. Then the servants talked of going, and letters came from America telling Vane how complete his father’s ruin had been. He had been buried by his friends in New York, as Vane had directed by telegraph. Vane could no longer keep the château or even pay the household expenses. He must go to America to see what he could save of his father’s estate.
At the end of the month several physicians, most skilled in mental disorders, had a consultation on his mother’s case. The decision was unanimous—she was incurable. Could she live? Yes, with proper care, for years. Dr. Kérouec had a personal friend who made a specialty of these cases and took charge of only two or three patients at a time. Was this her only chance of getting well? Yes: if no chance could be called a chance. It was not an ordinary maison de santé, and here she would have the best of treatment, but it was expensive—fifteen hundred francs a month. Could she bear the journey to America? Never. Vane thanked the doctors and dismissed them all, except Dr. Kérouec.
That night, for many hours, the young man paced the courtyard under his mother’s window. At ten in the morning he asked to see the doctor and found him breakfasting.
“I have decided,” he said briefly. Dr. Kérouec extended his hand: “Ce brave jeune homme!” The next evening his mother was safely installed in the pretty little house near Rennes, where already Dr. Kérouec and his friend had privately made preparations. “And, my boy,” said Dr. Kérouec (who was rich and knew all the circumstances by this time), “it is customary to pay in advance only when my friend does not know ses gens. I have told him that you will pay at the end of the year.” Vane’s voice faltered as he thanked the doctor, but he produced a bank note for five thousand francs and insisted upon leaving it then.
That night Dr. Kérouec saw Vane safely on board the St. Malo packet. “I will care for her, my son,” he said, with a parting pressure of the hand. “Ce brave jeune homme,” he muttered, as he walked ashore and up the little Norman street, mopping his bald head (for it was a hot June evening) with a large red silk handkerchief.
III.
VANE had six hundred francs left; and, taking the Holyhead mail, the next evening he was on board the City of Richmond at Queenstown as a steerage passenger. He had been troubled with no further thoughts of adventure in the Soudan; and was quite indifferent as to his own dénouement. He spent a great deal of the time at sea walking on the deck; as a steerage passenger he was allowed to walk aft as far as the foremast. The other steerage passengers looked upon him as an intellectual young gentleman; probably a scholar in reduced circumstances.
Eighteen thousand francs a year, Vane was thinking; this, at least, he must have, for his mother could not be sent elsewhere. Gold was then at a premium, and this sum meant four thousand a year in America. Just the insignificant fortune he had lost; but could his labor be worth so much? This problem had filled his mind, and kept his temper sane. One who has to earn his bread has little time to sigh for things less possible of attainment. The natural animal motive atones for any want of others; no one is a pessimist who has to work for his living. The young man smiled a little at the thought that he, too, was going to America to seek his fortune—not to improve his future, but to amend what remained of the past. This one obvious, clear duty was before him then. Afterwards, he might see what the world had left for him.
One day about sunset he was sitting on the deck, reading a favorite book of his—an old Florentine edition of Petrarca. As he turned the leaves, a broken rose fell from them. It was a book which they—the English girl and he—had often read together; and, having no Bible (for, like all Frenchmen and many young men, he was rather a skeptic in matters of religion), he had thrown her rose hastily between the leaves. He was surprised a little, now, at his own want of sentiment. But those times already seemed so far off! He looked at the flower a moment; then picked it up, and dropped it in the sea. The leaves scattered as it fell, and were soon lost in the broad wake of the steamer.