"So she believed that you had filled your ship with fifty bales of shavings. She believed it, and called you a thief. She believed you were as gauche as that. I can guess the rest of the story."
But my father had regained his equanimity.
"Five hundred bales of shavings," he corrected. "You are misinformed even about the merest details."
"And for fifteen years, you have been roving about the world, trying to convince her she was right. Ah, you are touched? I have guessed your secret. Can anything be more ridiculous!"
He half started from his chair, and again his face grew drawn and haggard.
"She was right," he said, a little hoarsely. "Believe me, she was always right, Mademoiselle."
"Nonsense," said Mademoiselle. "I do not believe it."
My father turned to me with a shrug of his shoulders.
"It is pleasant to remember, is it not, my son, that your mother had a keener discernment, and did not give way to the dictates of a romantic imagination?"
"Sir," I said, "there is only one reason why I ever came here, and that was because my mother requested it. She wanted you to know, sir, that she regretted what she said almost the moment you left the house. If you had ever written her, if you had ever sent a single word, you could have changed it all. In spite of all the evidence, she never came fully to believe it."