"WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN——"
When Floriot and Raymond passed out of the little room, the former dropped heavily into one of the big empty armchairs on the bank where the judges had sat a short time before. Raymond gazed at him anxiously. His face was buried in his hands and he made no sound.
"What's the matter, father?" asked the young man, laying his hand on the quivering shoulder. But still his father did not speak. He was trying to nerve himself up to meet the hour that he had dreaded for years. The time for delay was past. He believed that Jacqueline would live only a few hours and he dared not let Raymond's mother die and have him learn afterward that he had been! robbed of his one chance to speak to her and know. He felt that Raymond might possibly forgive anything but that.
With an effort he raised his haggard eyes to his son's and took the boy's hand in his.
"My boy," he said, his voice hoarse and trembling with emotion, "I must tell you something unbelievably terrible. I know—how you have loved me and looked up to me—as the sort of man you want to be. When you've heard—what I must tell you now—you will curse God for making me your father!"
"Father!" cried the boy in horror, throwing his arm around his neck. "Father! What——"
But Floriot gently pushed him away and silenced him with a gesture.
"Your mother—is not dead!" he faltered. The words struck the color from Raymond's face and he almost staggered back and stared at his father with terrified eyes.
"Not dead!" he repeated in a dull whisper. Floriot shook his head.
"When you were hardly a year old she left—me!" he said. The boy started forward with a cry that was something between a choke and a sob.