In Search of a Son

by William S. Walsh

"And so you understood him?" continued Miette, very much interested. "And he called you loudly by your name, 'Paul! Paul!'"

Paul Solange did not answer. This question had suddenly set him to thinking. No, he had not heard himself called thus. But how had he been called?

Seeing that Paul was silent, Albert answered his little sister's question:

"Certainly," said he, "he called Paul by his name."

Then he interrupted himself, and, remembering all of a sudden:

"No," cried he; "Monsieur Roger called out another name."

"What other name?" asked Monsieur Dalize, much surprised.

"He cried out, 'George! George!'"

Monsieur Dalize turned his head towards Roger and saw the eyes of his friend fixed upon his own. He understood at once. Poor Roger was still a slave to the same thought, the same illusion.

Madame Dalize and Miette, who were acquainted with the sorrows of Monsieur Roger, imagined that in this moment of trouble he had in spite of himself called up the image of his child. Paul, very gravely, was dreamily saying to himself that the name of George was the name which he had heard, and that it was to the sound of this name that he had answered, and he was asking himself the mysterious reason for such a fact.