Nobody's Girl Part 49

"And that is why I am listening to you," said the blind man; "what you say is not quite reasonable, but you speak as a good girl would."

"Well, sir, what I am trying to say is this," said Perrine boldly; "if you love your son and want to have him back with you, he also loves his daughter and wants to have her with him."

"He should not hesitate between his father and his daughter," said the old man; "besides, if the marriage is annulled, she will be nothing to him. He could soon marry that woman off again with the dowry that I would give her. Everything is changed since he went away. My fortune is much larger.... He will have riches, honor and position. Surely it isn't a little half-caste that can keep him back."

"Perhaps she is not so dreadful as you imagine," said Perrine.

"A Hindu."

"In the books that I read to you it says that the Hindus are more beautiful than the Europeans," said Perrine.

"Travelers' exaggerations," said the old man scoffingly.

"They have graceful figures, faces of pure oval, deep eyes with a proud look. They are patient, courageous, industrious; they are studious...."

"You have a memory!"

"One should always remember what one reads, should not one?" asked Perrine. "It does not seem that the Hindu is such a horrible creature as you say."

"Well, what does all that matter to me as I do not know her?"

"But if you knew her you might perhaps get interested in her and learn to love her."

"Never! I can't bear to think of her and her mother!..."

"But if you knew her you might not feel so angry towards her."

He clenched his fist as though unable to control his fury, but he did not stop her.

"I don't suppose that she is at all like you suppose," said Perrine; "Father Fields is a good priest and he would not say what was not true, and he says that her mother was good and kind and a lady...."

"He never knew her; it is hearsay."

"But it seems that everyone holds this opinion. If she came to your house would you not be as kind to her as you have been to me, ... a stranger?"

"Don't say anything against yourself."

"I do not speak for or against myself, but what I ask is for justice. I know if that daughter, your granddaughter, came here she would love you with all her heart."

She clasped her hands together and looked up at him as though he could see her; her voice shook with emotion.

"Wouldn't you like to be loved by your granddaughter?" she asked pleadingly.

The blind man rose impatiently.

"I tell you she can never be anything to me," he cried. "I hate her as I hate her mother. The woman took my son from me and she keeps him from me. If she had not bewitched him he would have been back long before this. She has been everything to him while I, his father, have been nothing."

He strode back and forth, carried away with his anger. She had never seen him like this. Suddenly he stopped before her.

"Go to your room," he said almost harshly, "and never speak of those creatures to me again; besides, what right have you to mix up in this?

Who told you to speak to me in such a manner?"

For a moment she was dumbfounded, then she said:

"Oh, no one, sir, I a.s.sure you. I just put myself into your little granddaughter's place, that is all."

He softened somewhat, but he continued still in a severe voice: "In the future do not speak on this subject; you see it is painful for me and you must not annoy me."

"I beg your pardon," she said, her voice full of tears; "certainly I ought not to have spoken so."

CHAPTER XXVII

THE BLIND MAN'S GRIEF

Monsieur Vulfran advertised in the princ.i.p.al newspapers of Calcutta, Dacca, Bombay and London for his son. He offered a reward of forty pounds to anyone who could furnish any information, however slight it might be, about Edmond Paindavoine. The information must, however, be authentic. Not wis.h.i.+ng to give his own address, which might have brought to him all sorts of correspondence more or less dishonest, he put the matter into the hands of his banker at Amiens.

Numerous letters were received, but very few were serious; the greater number came from detectives who guaranteed to find the person they were searching for if the expenses for the first steps necessary could be sent them. Other letters promised everything without any foundation whatever upon which they based their promises. Others related events that had occurred five, ten, twelve years previous; no one kept to the time stated in the advertis.e.m.e.nt, that was the last three years.

Perrine read or translated all these letters for the blind man. He would not be discouraged at the meagre indications sent him.

"It is only by continued advertising that we shall get results," he said always. Then again he advertised.

Finally, one day a letter from Bosnia gave them some information which might lead to something. It was written in bad English, and stated that if the advertiser would place the forty pounds promised with a banker at Serajevo the writer would furnish authentic information concerning M.

Edmond Paindavoine going back to the month of November of the preceding year. If this proposition was acceptable, the reply was to be sent to N.

917, General Delivery, Serajevo.

This letter seemed to give M. Vulfran so much relief and joy that it was a confession of what his fears had been.

For the first time since he had commenced his investigations, he spoke of his son to his two nephews and Talouel.

"I am delighted to tell you that at last I have news of my son," he said. "He was in Bosnia last November."

There was great excitement as the news was spread through the various towns and villages. As usual under such circ.u.mstances, it was exaggerated.

"M. Edmond is coming back. He'll be home shortly," went from one to another.

"It's not possible!" cried some.

"If you don't believe it," they were told, "you've only to look at Talouel's face and M. Vulfran's nephews."

Yet there were some who would not believe that the exile would return.

The old man had been too hard on him. He had not deserved to be sent away to India because he had made a few debts. His own family had cast him aside, so he had a little family of his own out in India. Why should he come back? And then, even if he was in Bosnia or Turkey, that was not to say that he was on his way to Maraucourt. Coming from India to France, why should he have to go to Bosnia? It was not on the route.

This remark came from Bendit, who, with his English coolheadedness, looked at things only from a practical standpoint, in which sentiment played no part. He thought that just because everyone wished for the son and heir to return, it was not enough to bring him back. The French could wish a thing and believe it, but he was English, he was, and he would not believe that he was coming back until he saw him there with his own eyes!