In Search Of A Son Part 26

"Yes; you love him as much and perhaps--perhaps more," she cried, seeing Paul start.

"Why do you say things like that to me?" murmured Paul, much moved.

"Because--nothing."

"Why do you think that I love Monsieur Roger in the manner that you have just said?"

"Because----"

"Because what?"

"Well, because I look at my papa just as I see you looking at Monsieur Roger."

Paul tried to hide his embarra.s.sment, and replied,--

"You are foolish."

Then he looked up at Miette, who shook her head and smiled, as if to say that she was not foolish. An idea came to him.

"Miette," said he, softly, "I am going to ask you something."

"Ask it."

"But you will tell it to no one?"

"To no one."

"Well, do you know why Monsieur Roger, at the fire at the farm, called me--called me George?"

"Why, certainly, I know."

"You know?" cried Paul.

"Yes: he called you George because he thought suddenly that his child, his little George, whom he lost in a fire,--in a fire on s.h.i.+pboard----"

Paul Solange listened, opening his eyes very wide.

"Ah, that is true. You don't know anything about it. You were not here when Monsieur Roger told us this terrible thing."

"No, I was not here; but you were here, Miette. Well, speak--tell me all about it."

Then Miette repeated to Paul Monsieur Roger's story; she told him about the departure of Monsieur Roger, his wife, and their little George for America, their voyage on the s.h.i.+p, then the fire at sea. She told about the grief, the almost insane grief, which Monsieur Roger had felt when he saw himself separated from his wife and his son, who had been taken off in a boat, while he remained upon the steamer. Then she told Paul of the despair of Monsieur Roger when he saw that boat disappear and bear down with it to a watery grave those whom he loved.

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"At that moment," continued Miette, "Monsieur Roger told us that he cried out 'George! George!' with a voice so loud, so terrified, that certainly his little boy must have heard."

Miette stopped.

"Why, what is the matter, Paul?" she cried: "are you sick?"

For Paul Solange had suddenly become so pale that Miette was scared.

"Not at all," said he; "not at all; but finish your story."

"It is finished."

"How?"

"Poor Monsieur Roger has never again seen his wife or his little George--or at least he saw his wife, whose body had been cast up by the waves, but the body of the little boy remained at the bottom of the sea."

After a silence, Miette added,--

"You now understand how it is that the fire at the farm recalled to him at once the fire on the s.h.i.+p, and why, in his grief, in his fright to see you in so great a danger, he thought of his little boy, and cried 'George!' You understand, don't you?"

Paul remained an instant without answering; then, very gravely, with a pale face and wide open eyes, he said,--

"I understand."

Paul Solange did not sleep the night which followed the day on which he learned all these things. His brain was full of strange thoughts. He was calling up shadowy confused recollections. He sought to go back as far as possible to the first years of his childhood, but his memory was at fault. He suddenly found a dark corner where everything disappeared; he could go no farther; but now that he knew Monsieur Roger's story, he was certain, absolutely certain that he had answered to the name of George in the fire at the farm. It was that name, that name only, which had suddenly shaken off his torpor and given him the strength to awake; it was that name that had saved him. Feverishly searching in his memory, he said to himself that this name he had heard formerly p.r.o.nounced with the same loud and terrified voice in some crisis, which must have been very terrible, but which he could not recall; and then, hesitating anxiously, feeling that he was making a fool of himself, he asked himself if it was during the fire on s.h.i.+pboard, of which Miette had spoken, that he had heard this name of George; and little by little, in the silence of the night, this conviction entered and fixed itself in his mind. Then he turned his thoughts upon the way that Monsieur Roger had treated him.

Whence this sudden and great affection which Monsieur Roger had shown him? Why that sympathy which he knew to be profound and whose cause he could not explain, as he did not merit it a bit more than his friend Albert? Why had Monsieur Roger so bravely risked his life to save him?

Why had his emotion been so great? Lastly, why this cry of "George?"

And Paul Solange arrived at this logical conclusion,--

"If Monsieur Roger loves me so much; if he gave me, at the terrible moment when I came near dying, the name of his son, it must be because I recalled to him his son; it must be because I resemble his little George. And what then?"

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CHAPTER XXVIII.

MY FATHER.

When Paul at last fell into an uneasy sleep, the sun had been up for some hours. Monsieur Dalize and his friend Roger went out from the chateau.

"Has the postman not been here yet?" said Monsieur Dalize to his servant.

"No sir; he will not be here for an hour."

"Very well; we will go to meet him."

And in fact, in his haste, Monsieur Roger carried his friend off to meet the postman.