oom every moment, believing, naturally, that I had lost my reason. I
sent her away with a word or a movement of the hand. She went for the
doctor, who found me in the throes of a nervous attack.

"'I was put to bed. I had brain fever.

"'When I regained consciousness, after a long illness, I saw beside my
bed my--lover--alone.

"'I exclaimed:

"'My son? Where is my son?

"'He made no reply. I stammered:

"'Dead-dead. Has he committed suicide?

"'No, no, I swear it. But we have not found him in spite of all my
efforts.

"'Then, becoming suddenly exasperated and even indignant--for women
are subject to such outbursts of unaccountable and unreasoning anger--I
said:

"'I forbid you to come near me or to see me again unless you find him.
Go away!

"He did go away.

"'I have never seen one or the other of them since, monsieur, and thus I
have lived for the last twenty years.

"'Can you imagine what all this meant to me? Can you understand this
monstrous punishment, this slow, perpetual laceration of a mother's
heart, this abominable, endless waiting? Endless, did I say? No; it
is about to end, for I am dying. I am dying without ever again seeing
either of them--either one or the other!

"'He--the man I loved--has written to me every day for the last twenty
years; and I--I have never consented to see him, even for one second;
for I had a strange feeling that, if he were to come back here, my son
would make his appearance at the same moment. Oh! my son! my son! Is he
dead? Is he living? Where is he hiding? Over there, perhaps, beyond
the great ocean, in some country so far away that even its very name is
unknown to me! Does he ever think of me? Ah! if he only knew! How cruel
one's children are! Did he understand to what frightful suffering he
condemned me, into what depths of despair, into what tortures, he cast
me while I was still in the prime of life, leaving me to suffer until
this moment, when I am about to die--me, his mother, who loved him with
all the intensity of a mother's love? Oh! isn't it cruel, cruel?

"'You will tell him all this, monsieur--will you not? You will repeat to
him my last words:

"'My child, my dear, dear child, be less harsh toward poor women! Life
is already brutal and savage enough in its dealings with them. My dear
son, think of what the existence of your poor mother has been ever since
the day you left her. My dear child, forgive her, and love her, now that
she is dead, for