‘No, for that is not all!’ he replied, interrupting me sternly, while his grasp on my arm grew tighter and his eyes flashed as they looked into mine. ‘You have not heard all. They have gone with one who called you an impostor, and a thief, and a beggar, and that to your mother’s face—and killed her! Killed her as surely as if he had taken a sword to her, M. de Marsac! Will you, after that, leave her for them?’
He spoke plainly. And yet, God forgive me, it was some time before I understood him: before I took in the meaning of his words, or could transfer my thoughts from the absent to my mother lying on the bed before me. When I did do so, and turned to her, and saw her still face and thin hair straggling over the coarse pillow, then, indeed, the sight overcame me. I thought no more of others—for I thought her dead; and with a great and bitter cry I fell on my knees beside her and hid my face. What, after all, was this headstrong girl to me? What were even kings and king’s commissions to me beside her—beside the one human being who loved me still, the one being of my blood and name left, the one ever-patient, ever-constant heart which for years had beaten only for me? For a while, for a few moments, I was worthy of her; for I forgot all others.
Simon Fleix roused me at last from my stupor, making me understand that she was not dead, but in a deep swoon, the result of the shock she had undergone. A leech, for whom he had despatched a neighbour, came in as I rose, and taking my place, presently restored her to consciousness. But her extreme feebleness warned me not to hope for more than a temporary recovery; nor had I sat by her long before I discerned that this last blow, following on so many fears and privations, had reached a vital part, and that she was even now dying.
She lay for a while with her hand in mine and her eyes closed, but about noon, the student, contriving to give her some broth, she revived, and, recognising me, lay for more than an hour gazing at me with unspeakable content and satisfaction. At the end of that time, and when I thought she was past speaking, she signed to me to bend over her, and whispered something, which at first I could not catch. Presently I made it out to be, ‘She is gone—The girl you brought?’
Much troubled, I answered yes, begging her not to think about the matter. I need not have feared, however, for when she spoke again she did so without emotion, and rather as one seeing clearly something before her.
‘When you find her, Gaston,’ she murmured, ‘do not be angry with her. It was not her fault. She—he deceived her. See!’
I followed the direction rather of her eyes than her hand, and found beneath the pillow a length of gold chain. ‘She left that?’ I murmured, a strange tumult of emotions in my breast.
‘She laid it there,’ my mother whispered. ‘And she would have stopped him saying what he did’—a shudder ran through my mother’s frame at the remembrance of the man’s words, though her eyes still gazed into mine with faith and confidence—‘she would have stopped him, but she could not, Gaston. And then he hurried her away.’
‘He showed her a token, madame, did he not?’ I could not for my life repress the question, so much seemed to turn on the point.
‘A bit of gold,’ my mother whispered, smiling faintly. ‘Now let me sleep.’ And, clinging always to my hand, she closed her eyes.