Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-40.djvu/249

Rh "No, no, Denise. I was going to call upon you this evening, and ask the doctor to leave us alone together; and then—and then!"

More sentiment; more tautology.

"Oh, but—oh, to think—to think that you have got to go—so soon—to—to-morrow night—and be—be gone all winter!" Her voice broke into a sob.

"There, there, my" A perfect flood of sentiment and tautology.

At the door of her house they parted, he promising to return after dinner and spend the evening.

Climbing up the staircase of the Hôtel de l'Univers, toward his own room, he heard the voice of his landlady calling after him:

"Monsieur! Monsieur Ormizon!"

"Yes?" he queried, halting.

"Des lettres—des lettres pour vous, monsieur."

The landlady ran up to meet him, and put a large batch of American letters into his hand.

One of these letters was addressed to him in the penmanship of his mother!

At sight of his mother's handwriting, all at once, the great joy in Stephen Ormizon's heart went out; expired in a sudden spasm, like a flame upon which cold water has been poured. It was supplanted by dread and foreboding. His hands became stone-cold, and gave off a scant clammy moisture. He could feel a small spot of fire begin to burn in either cheek. He could count the pulsations of the arteries in his temples. A lump gathered in his throat. In his breast there was a heavy, chilling weight, like a ball of ice.

He mounted with leaden footsteps the remainder of the staircase, and entered his room, carrying the letter. He had to struggle hard before he could muster the courage to open it.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked himself. "Can words hurt you? Likely enough she says exactly what you want her to. And even if she doesn't? what of it? Aren't you big enough to stand a scolding? Come, come!"

That was all very well, very right and sensible. Nevertheless, it was with a quaking heart that at last he tore off the envelope, and, by the flickering light of his candle, proceeded to read:

—Rather more than a fortnight ago I received a letter, bearing the Paris postmark, and signed with your name, which, if it had not been written in your unmistakable hand, I could never have brought myself to believe came from a child of mine. That my son, my own flesh and blood, whom I endeavored conscientiously to train up in the way he should go, and to imbue with the same high principles by which I have always guided my own life,—that he can be so steeped in selfishness, so utterly lost to all sense of honor and