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Read Ebook: Madame X: a story of mother-love by Bisson Alexandre McConaughy J W Volkert Edward Charles Illustrator
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Ebook has 1601 lines and 52213 words, and 33 pages
. He had but to open his eyes and look forgiveness and her warm body would be pressed again to his breast, her soft arms would be around his neck and her soft lips would shower kisses on his face. ... He drew a sharp breath and rose slowly and uncertainly.
"Jacqueline!" he said in an unsteady voice, not daring to let his wavering eyes look down. "Jacqueline, you must go!"
A long, convulsive sob and:
"Ah, why did I go at all? Why did I ever go?" she moaned. "You would have killed me and that would have been the end of it! Louis, forgive me! Forgive me!" And she clasped his limp hand in both of hers and looked up piteously.
"What will become of me?" she pleaded, as her instinct told her that he was weakening.
"Go back to him! Go back to the man who would have killed himself for you!" he cried in a voice that he tried in vain to make as bitter as the words. And he made no effort to free his hand. The answer was a barely audible whisper:
"He is dead!"
Floriot jerked his hand away with an exclamation of horror and sprang back, his eyes flashing with anger.
"So that is why you've come back!" he blazed furiously.
The flaming scorn in his eyes stopped her.
"And I was on the point of yielding!" His laugh made the woman wince. "What a fool I was! I actually believed you! So he is dead, is he?"
She bowed her head in utter despair.
"I wrote--to tell you."
"And now that he is dead you thought of me again--of me, of your idiot of a husband"--his voice rose with fury--"the simple-minded fool who would be only too glad to take you back again!"
"Louis, I love you--I wanted to see you, to see our child again! Can't you see I've changed?" she pleaded. She threw open her arms and tears ran unheeded down her face.
"Changed! Hah!--Leave the house!" and he pointed imperiously to the door.
"Louis, it's true! Let me see our boy again!"--
"He has forgotten you!"
"Let me kiss him--just once!" she begged.
"He believes you to be dead!" he said, with cold cruelty. The mother rushed to him with half-stifled shriek and terror in her face.
"Louis! No! No!" she screamed, "No! No! No!"
"He does!"
"Louis, no! Don't say that!" Horror was driving her to hysteria. "It can't be true! You wouldn't tell him that! Louis, you loved me once! You loved me! It's not possible! I am your wife--his mother! His mother!"
Floriot eyed her, cold and unmoved.
"You have gone out of his life and mine," he replied calmly. Jacqueline moaning, sank to the floor.
He pulled her roughly to her feet and half-carried her toward the door.
"Don't take my child away from me!" she panted, struggling.
"Go! Leave the house!"
"Oh! Let me see him! I won't--speak! Let me kiss him! I won't--say a word!" she gasped as they reached the door and he pushed her violently through into the hall.
The slam of the door cut off the sound of the pleading voice from his ears. He held the knob to prevent her from reopening it. For a few moments there was silence. Then Floriot heard through the door something between a choke and a sob and the quickly receding rustle of skirts. The bang of the outside door echoed through the silent house.
OPENING FOR THE DEFENSE
For more than a minute Floriot stood motionless, but now he was leaning his weight on the hand that held the knob. He listened--half-hoping, half-fearing that he would hear her at the outside door--and then staggered across the room and collapsed into the chair where she had sat, lying with arms and head on the table above the photograph that Jacqueline had kissed. He had won--but to know that he would have found happiness in defeat.
There was a sound of someone at the door leading to the stairway, and he barely had time to wipe the moisture from his forehead and half-compose himself before Dr. Chennel swung breezily into the room.
Floriot straightened up and put out his hand. His face was lined and livid and his eyes were wild with grief.
"My dear--doctor!" he said, brokenly, "I have just gone through--the most awful fifteen minutes of my life. My--my wife--has been here!"
"Your wife!" The doctor fell back a step and stared at him. Floriot buried his face in his handkerchief.
"Yes, she has--just gone! You can imagine--how I felt No, you can't!" he cried, bitterly, springing up with clenched fists. "For a moment I was afraid of myself--afraid that I would kill her!"
Dr. Chennel watched the writhing face in silence as Floriot paced wildly up and down the room.
The other stopped him with a gentle touch on the arm.
"Floriot, my friend," he said quietly, "sit down a moment and try to get hold of yourself."
The calm strong voice of the physician had the effect that he desired. Floriot's shoulders squared and his voice grew firm.
"You're right, Doctor. I will forget all about it! Do you know why she came back?" he added bitterly. "Her lover is dead!"
Rose opened the hall door.
"Monsieur Noel has come, sir!"
Floriot nodded.
A well-set-up young man--apparently several years younger than Floriot, though his hair was more heavily grayed--entered the library with a springy step and cheery call of:
"Well, here I am! And very much alive!"
His blue eyes were smiling and his white teeth gleamed in the lamplight but his face bore the marks of storms that sweep the soul. And on his right temple was visible the end of a large scar that extended up under the hair.
"My dear old Noel!" exclaimed Floriot, hurrying to meet him with both hands extended. The friends stood with their hands locked and looked each other over with the affection mixed with curiosity that may be marked when two who have been as brothers meet after a long separation. "This is my friend, Dr. Chennel," said Floriot, turning at last. "Shake hands with him, old man! He has just saved my boy's life!"
"Then I'm more than glad to shake you by the hand, Doctor," said Noel, gracefully, as he took the doctor's fingers in his. "For anything that touches Floriot comes very near to me!"
The doctor bowed his appreciation and Floriot, who had never taken his eyes off his friend, remarked with a smile:
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