Part 22 (1/2)

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXIII.

A PROOF?

Monsieur Dalize took his friend Roger by the arm, and they walked together down one of the solitary pathways of the park. When they were some distance off from Madame Dalize and the children, Monsieur Dalize stopped, looked his friend squarely in the eyes, and said, in a faltering tone,--

”Then you still think it? You have retained that foolish idea? You think that Paul----?”

”Yes,” interrupted Monsieur Roger, in a firm voice, and without avoiding the eyes of his friend, ”I think it, and more than that.”

Then, lowering his head, in a softened tone, but without hesitation, he said, ”I think that Paul is my son.”

Monsieur Dalize looked at his friend with a feeling of real pity.

”Your son?” he said. ”You think that Paul is your son? And on what do you found this improbable, this impossible belief? Upon a likeness which your sorrowful spirit persists in tracing. Truly, my dear Roger, you grieve me. I thought you had a firmer as well as a clearer head. To whom could you confide such absurd ideas?”

”To you, in the first place, as I have already done,” said Monsieur Roger, gravely. ”The resemblance which you doubt, and which, in fact, seems impossible to prove, is not a resemblance which I see between Paul and George, but between Paul and her who was his mother; of that I am sure.”

”You are sure?”

”Yes; and in speaking thus I am in possession of all my senses, as you see. Now, would you like to know what further clue I have? Perhaps I have one. I will tell it to you.”

Here Monsieur Roger interrupted himself.

”No,” said he: ”you will laugh at me.”

”Speak,” said Monsieur Dalize. ”I am sorry for you, and I shall not laugh at your delusion. Speak. I will listen.”