Conscience Part 44

"You do not recognize me, do you? I am sure you are asking yourself if I am not ill."

"Oh, dearest, do not jest, and do not harden yourself against the sentiment that makes such sweet music on your lips! I am happy, so happy, to hear you speak thus, that I would like to see your happiness equal to mine; to dissipate the dark cloud that veils your glance. Will you never abandon yourself? At this hour, above all, when everything sings and laughs within us as about us! Nothing was more natural than that you should be sad six months ago; but today what more do you want to make you happy?"

"Nothing, it is true."

"Is not the present the radiant morning of a glorious future?"

"What will you? There are sad physiognomies as there are happy ones; mine is not yours. But let us talk no more of that, nor of the past, nor of the future; let us talk of the present."

He rose, and, taking her in his arms, made her sit next to him on the sofa.

The sound of the doorbell made Saniel jump as if he had received an electric shock.

"You will not open the door?" Phillis said. "Do not let any one take our evening from us."

But soon another ring, more decided, brought him to his feet.

"It is better to know," he said, and he went to open the door, leaving Phillis in his office.

A maid handed him a letter.

"From Madame Dammauville," she said; "there is an answer."

He left her in the vestibule, and returned to his office to read the letter. The dream had not lasted long; reality seized him with its pitiless hands. This letter, certainly, would announce the blow that menaced him.

"If Dr. Saniel is disengaged, I beg that he will come to see me this evening on an urgent affair; I will wait for him until ten o'clock.

If not, I count on seeing him to-morrow morning after nine o'clock.

"A. DAMMAUVILLE."

He returned to the vestibule.

"Say to Madame. Dammauville that I shall be there in a quarter of an hour."

When he reentered the office he found Phillis before the gla.s.s, putting on her hat.

"I heard," she said. "What a disappointment! But I cannot wish you to stay, since it is for Florentin that you leave me."

As she walked toward the door he stopped her.

"Embrace me once more."

Never had he pressed her in such a long and pa.s.sionate embrace.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV. ON THE RACK

He had not a second of doubt; Madame Dammauville did not wish a professional visit from him. She wished to speak to him of Caffie, and, in the coming crisis, he said to himself that perhaps it was fortunate that it was so; at least he would be first to know what she had decided to do, and he could defend himself. Nothing is hopeless as long as a struggle is possible.

He rang the bell with a firm hand, and the door was opened by the maid who brought the letter. With a small lamp in her hand, she conducted him through the dining-room and the salon to Madame Dammauville's bedroom.

At the threshold, a glance showed him that some changes had been made in the arrangement of the furniture. The small bed where he had seen Madame Dammauville was placed between the two windows, and she was lying in a large bed with canopy and curtains. Near her was a table on which were a shaded lamp, some books, a blotting-book, a teapot, and a cup; on the white quilt rested an unusually long bellrope, so that she might pull it without moving. The fire in the chimney was out, but the movable stove sent out a heat that denoted it was arranged for the night.

Saniel felt the heat, and mechanically unb.u.t.toned his overcoat.

"If the heat is uncomfortable, will you not remove your overcoat?"

Madame Dammauville said.

While he disposed of it and his hat, placing them on a chair by the fireplace, he heard Madame Dammauville say to her maid:

"Remain in the salon, and tell the cook not to go to bed."

What did this mean? Was she afraid that he would cut her throat?

"Will you come close to my bed?" she said. "It is important that we should talk without raising our voices."

He took a chair and seated himself at a certain distance from the bed, and in such a way that he was beyond the circle of light thrown by the lamp. Then he waited.

A moment of silence, which he found terribly long, slipped away before she spoke.

"You know," she said at last, "how I saw, accidentally, from this place"--she pointed to one of the windows--"the face of the a.s.sa.s.sin of my unfortunate tenant, Monsieur Caffie."

"Mademoiselle Cormier has told me," he replied in a tone of ordinary conversation.

"Perhaps you are astonished that at such a distance I saw the face clearly enough to recognize it after five months, as if it were still before me."

"It is extraordinary."

"Not to those who have a memory for faces and att.i.tudes; with me this memory has always been strongly developed. I remember the playmates of my childhood, and I see them as they were at six and ten years of age, without the slightest confusion in my mind."

"The impressions of childhood are generally vivid and permanent."

"This persistency does not only apply to my childish impressions. Today, I neither forget nor confound a physiognomy. Perhaps if I had had many acquaintances, and if I had seen a number of persons every day, there might be some confusion in my mind; but such is not the case. My delicate health has obliged me to lead a very quiet life, and I remember every one whom I have met. When I think of such a one, it is not of the name at first, but of the physiognomy. Each time that I have been to the Senate or to the Chamber, I did not need to ask the names of the deputies or senators who spoke; I had seen their portraits and I recognized them. If I go into these details it is because they are of great importance, as you will see."

It was not necessary for her to point out their importance; he understood her only too well.

"In fine, I am thus," she continued. "It is, therefore, not astonis.h.i.+ng that the physiognomy and the att.i.tude of the man who drew the curtains in Monsieur Caffie's office should not leave my memory. You admit this, do you not?"

"Since you consult me, I must tell you that the operations of the memory are not so simple as people imagine. They comprise three things: the conservation of certain states, their reproduction and localization in the past, which should be reunited to const.i.tute the perfect memory.

Now this reunion does not always take place, and often the third is lacking."

"I do not grasp your meaning very well. But what is the third thing?"

"Recognition."

"Well, I can a.s.sure you that in this case it is not lacking!"