Page:The Mystery of Madeline Le Blanc (1900).djvu/92

92 not know Madeline when I see her? Did not we grow up together? Was not I her first playmate and her last?. Do you think that I know not those eyes the like of which look from no other face? Will the"

"Why didn't you stop her?" interrupted the father, hoping to bring Irène to her senses.

"I could not; I fell back into my uncle's arms; my throat was choked and I could not speak. It was too much for me thus to see the dead walk the streets again."

It was fully an hour before Monsieur succeeded in pacifying Irène; and then only after she had extracted from him a promise to return with her to Paris in the morning. At eleven o'clock all retired; but for some time only Irène, evercome by physical exhaustion, slept. Monsieur Le Blanc knew human nature well enough to understand that such certainty and persistence are not often born of illusion. "The body can be disinterred," he thought, "that would satisfy all doubt." But he could not do it himself. He did not wish to look again upon the icy face of the