Whether he wuz found guilty at that other bar where the naked souls of men and wimmen stand to be judged, I don’t spoze his rich and titled friends ever thought to ask themselves.
Anyway, he left Madeline and little Genieve—for so he had named the child after an old friend of his—he left them and sailed off for France and the new life to be lived out in the eyes of the world, where Happiness and gratified Ambition seemed to carry the torches to light him on his way.
Whether there wuz any other attendants who waited on him, a holdin’ up dim-burnin’ lamps to light him as he walked down Memory’s aisles, I don’t know, but I should dare presume to say there wuz.
I should presume to say that in the still night hours, when the palace lights burned low and the garlands and the feast robes put away for a spell, and his fair young wife wuz sleepin’ peacefully at his side—I should presume to say that these black-robed attendants, that are used to lightin’ folks down dark pathways, led him back to love—first, true, sweet love—and Madeline, and that under their cold, onsympathizin’ eyes he stayed there for some time.
As for Madeline, she wuz stunned and almost senseless by the blow, and wuz for a long time. Then she had a long sickness, and when she come to herself she seemed to be ponderin’ some deep thought all to herself.
The nurse who was watchin’ with her testified that she dropped to sleep one mornin’ before daylight, and when she woke up her patient wuz gone, and the child.
She had some money that her old mistress had give her from time to time, and that she had never had to use; that wuz taken, with some valuable jewelry too that that kind old friend had give her—for she had loved to set off her favorite’s dark beauty with the light of precious stones—all these wuz taken; but every article that Monseur De Chasseny had give her wuz left. And all the money that he left for her not a penny wuz ever called for. She disappeared as if she had never been; lawyers and detectives, hired, it wuz spozed, by De Chasseny, could find no trace of her.
There wuz a good, fatherly old missionary in the little settlement near by who might perhaps have given some information if he had wanted to; but they never thought of askin’ him, and they would have been no wiser if they had, most probable.
But about this time a woman in deep mournin’, with a beautiful young child, come to the little hamlet near Belle Fanchon.
She said she wuz a colored woman, though no one would have believed it.