"Time passed on. I had read in an American paper the announcement of my false husband's dreadful death. Years blunted the poignancy of my grief, and I began to tire of my aimless life. He had often told me my voice would make my fortune on the stage. Acting on this hint, I went to London, had it cultivated, and learned music. At last, after years of unremitting application, I made my debut. It was a triumph, and every fresh attempt crowned me with new laurels. I next visited France; then I came here; and here I have been ever since. To-day, when I beheld you, the very image of your father as I knew him first, I almost imagined the grave had given up its dead. Such is my story—every word true, as heaven hears me. Was I not right, when I said it concerned you more nearly than you imagined?"
"Good Heaven! And was my father such a villain?" said Louis, with a groan.
"Hush! Speak no ill of the dead. I forgave him long ago, and surely you can do so too."
"Heaven help us all! what a world we live in!" said Louis, while, with a pang of remorse, his thoughts reverted to Celeste; and he inwardly thought how similar her fate might have been, had she consented to go with him.
"And was your child really dead?" he inquired, after a pause, during which she sat with her eyes fixed sadly on the floor. "He may have deceived you in that as in other things."
"I know not," she answered; "yet I have always had a sort of presentiment that it still lives. Oh, if heaven would but permit me to behold her alive, I could die happy!"
Louis sat gazing upon her with a puzzled look.
"I know not how it is," he said, "but you remind me strangely of some one I have seen before. I recognize your face, vaguely and indistinctly, as one does faces they see in dreams. I am sure I have seen some one resembling you elsewhere."
"Only fancy, I fear," said the lady, smiling, and shaking her head. "Do you intend hearing me sing to-night?"
"Oh, decidedly! Do you think I would miss what one might make a pilgrimage round the world to hear once?"