"Go on, my child. I believe you."
"I cannot tell you a part of this sad story; I have not been perfectly open. Some day I will, perhaps, and until that time comes I ask you to keep my secret, because there are good reasons now for silence; you will appreciate them when you know. Gaspard was left—our only chance. Mr. Morgan sought him, I sought him; he would have given him any sum for his knowledge. Gaspard would have sold it, we thought; want would have made him sell, but Gaspard had vanished as if death itself had carried him off.
"In this search I had always the assistance of Mr. Morgan, and at first his money defrayed all expense; but shortly afterward he influenced a leading opera master to give me a chance, and I sang in Paris as Cambia, for the first time. From that day I was rich, and Marion Evan disappeared from the world.
"Informed weekly of home affairs and my dear father, my separation was lessened of half its terrors. But year after year that unchanging friend stood by me. The time came when the stern face was the grandest object on which my eyes could rest. There was no compact between us; if I could have dissolved the marriage tie I would have accepted him and been happy. But Cambia could take no chances with herself nor with Gen. Evan! Divorce could only have been secured by three months' publication of notice in the papers and if that reached Gaspard his terrible answer would have been filed and I would have been disgraced.
"The American war had passed and then came the French war. And still no news from Gaspard. And one day came John Morgan, with the proposition that ten years of abandonment gave me liberty, and offered me his hand—and fortune. But—there were reasons—there were reasons. I could not. He received my answer and said simply: 'You are right!' After that we talked no more upon the subject.
"Clew after clew was exhausted; some led us into a foreign prison. I sang at Christmas to the convicts. All seemed touched; but none was overwhelmed; Gaspard was not among them.
"I sang upon the streets of Paris, disguised; all Paris came to know and hear the 'veiled singer,' whose voice, it was said, equaled the famous Cambia's. A blind violinist accompanied me. We managed it skillfully. He met me at a new place every evening, and we parted at a new place, I alighting from the cab we always took, at some unfrequented place, and sending him home. And now, madame, do you still believe in God?"
"Implicitly."
"Then tell me why, when, a few days since, I was called by your friend Mr. Morgan to the bedside of Gaspard Levigne, the old musician, who had accompanied me on the streets of Paris, why was it that God in His mercy did not give him breath to enable his lips to answer my pitiful question; why, if there is a God in heaven, did He not——"
"Hush, Marion!" The calm, sweet voice of the elder woman rose above the excitement and anguish of the singer. "Hush, my child; you have trusted too little in Him! God is great, and good and merciful. I can say it now; I will say it when His shadows fall upon my eyes as they must some day."