“I confess I was rather disappointed. I had expected that everything would happen as it does in a play—it had looked so like one hitherto. I thought I was going to meet a woman—young, beautiful, in distress, perhaps in want of a champion—but it was only a bed-ridden old man after all! Well, it might lead to an act of charity, that true chivalry of the soul, higher far than mere personal homage to accidental beauty. I entered a darkened room, scantily and shabbily furnished, and the old woman laid the candlestick on the table. The bed was in a corner near the fire; the uneven parquet floor was covered here and there with faded rugs, and books and papers lay on a desk on the old man's bed. At first I could hardly distinguish his features, but, as my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I saw that he was a martial-looking man, with eyes so keen that sickness could hardly dull them, and a bearing that indicated the stern will, the clear intellect, and the lofty bonhomie of an old Flemish gentilhomme. He looked at me with curious and prolonged interest, then said, in a voice full of bygone courtesy:
“ ‘Will monsieur be seated? I have made no mistake in the name?’
“ ‘No,’ I answered, wondering what the question meant.
“ ‘Then, monsieur, I have important news for you. The daughter of your brother—’
“I was already bewildered, and looked up. He continued, taking my surprise for interest: ‘The daughter of your poor brother is now a great heiress, and I hold her fortune in trust for her—do not interrupt me,’ he said, eagerly preventing me from speaking, ‘it tires me, and I must say all this at once. I do not know if you knew of her being taken from her parents when a child; of course you recollect that, after her mother's marriage with your brother, there was a great fracas, and poor Marie's father disinherited her at once. When the child was born—I was her god-father, by the bye—her parents being in great poverty, I begged of the grandfather to help and forgive them, the more so as your brother was making his poor wife very unhappy. He refused, and, though he generally took my advice (he was an an old college friend of mine), he was obstinate on this [pg 455] point. The child grew, and the parents were on worse terms every year. Marie's father held out against every inducement; your poor brother—forgive me, monsieur!—fell into bad company, and made his home a perfect hell; his wife was broken-hearted, but would not hear of a separation, and her only anxiety was for her child. I proposed to her to take the responsibility myself of putting the little one out of reach of this dreadful example of a divided household, and she consented. The father stormed and raved when he found the child was gone, but for once his wife opposed him, and refused to let him know her whereabouts. Every year I interceded with the grandfather, who consented to support the little girl, but would never promise to leave her a competency at his death. One day, suddenly, your poor brother died.’
“I could not help starting; he saw my surprise.
“ ‘Oh!’ he resumed, ‘did you not know how he died? Pardon me, monsieur, I remember now that none of his English kin followed him to the grave, but I had heard your name before.’
“ ‘Monsieur,’ I began, fearing that he might be led on to talk of family secrets such as he might not wish to share with a stranger, ‘you have told me a strange tale; but allow me to undeceive you—’
“ ‘How did you deceive me?’ he asked impatiently, and I, remembering the old dame's warning not to excite him, was puzzled how to act. In the meanwhile, he went on.
“ ‘Eh bien! The mother then went to England, to the school where her child was, and saw her, but she did not long survive the wear and tear of her wretched life, and the grief her husband's death caused her—for, poor woman, she loved him, you see.’