Page:Weird Tales volume 24 number 03.djvu/45

316 message from it. In it he made plain the things which Dennis thought that he remembered.

"Long and long ago Monsieur Tantavul lived in San Francisco. His wife was seven years his junior, and a pretty, joyous thing she was. She bore him two fine children, a little boy and girl, and on them she bestowed the love which he could not appreciate. His business took him often from the city, but when he went away he set a watch on her.

"Ha, the eavesdropper seldom hears good tidings of himself, and he who spies on others often wishes that he did not so. His surliness, his evil temper, his reproaches without praise, had driven her to seek release. She met and loved another man, and though she shrank from seeking freedom in that way, at last she yielded to his importunities, and was ready to escape, when Master Bluebeard-Tantavul suddenly returned.

"Eh bien, but he had planned a pretty scheme of vengeance! His baby girl he spirited away, gave her for keeping to some Mexicans, then told his wife his plan: He would bring the children up as strangers to each other, and when they grew to full estate he would marry them and keep their consanguinity a secret till they had a child, then break the dreadful truth to them. Thereafter they would live on, bound together for their children's sake, and fearing the world's censure; their consciences would cause them ceaseless torment, and the very love which they had for each other would be like fetters forged of white-hot steel, binding them in a prison-house from which there offered no release.

"When he had told her this his wife went mad, and, heartless as a devil out of hell, he thrust her into an institution, left her there to die, and took his babies with him, moving to New Jersey, and permitting them to grow to manhood and womanhood together, ceaselessly striving to guide them toward the altar, knowing always that his vengeance would be sated when his vile design had been accomplished."

"But, great heavens, man, they're brother and sister!" I exclaimed in horror.

"Perfectly," he answered coolly. "They are also husband and wife, and father and mother."

"But—but——" I stammered, utterly at a loss for words.

"But me no buts, good friend," he bade. "I know what you would say. Their child? Ah bah; consider: Did not the kings of ancient times repeatedly take their own sisters to wife, and were not their offspring sound and healthy? But certainly. Did not both Darwin and Wallace fail to find foundation for the doctrine that cross-breeding between healthy people with clean blood is productive of inferior offspring? Look at the little Monsieur Dennis. Were you not blinded by your silly training and tradition—did you not know his parents' near relationship—you would have no hesitation in pronouncing him an unusually fine and healthy child.

"Besides," he added earnestly, "they love each other, not as brother and sister, but as man and woman. He is her happiness, she is his, and little Monsieur Dennis is the happiness of both. Why destroy this joy—le bon Dieu knows they earned it by a joyless childhood!—when I can preserve it for them by simply keeping silent?"

"But——"

"But what you have learned you learned under the seal of your profession," he warned me solemnly. "You can not tell. I will not.

"Meantime"—he poured himself another drink—"I thirst."