The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(918)

                He—still on his knees—sighed deeply, from profound sorrow, and then said: “Oh, Mademoiselle, you whom I so honour and worship, is there no trace of recollection of me left in your mind?”

                Still looking at him attentively, she answered that she had certainly detected in his face a likeness to someone whom she had held in affection, and it was to this that he owed it that she had overcome her profound horror of a murderer so far as to be able to listen to him quietly. Much pained by her words, Brusson rose quickly, and stepped backwards a pace, with his gloomy glance fixed on the ground.

                Then, in a hollow voice, he said: “Have you quite forgotten Anne Guiot? Her son, Olivier, the boy whom you used to dandle on your knee, is he who is now before you.”

                “Oh! For the love of all the Saints!” she cried, covering her face with both hands and sinking back in her chair. She had reason for being thus horrified. Anne Guiot, the daughter of a citizen who had fallen into poverty, had lived with Mademoiselle de Scudéri from her childhood; she had brought her up like a daughter, with all affection and care. When she grew up, a handsome, well-conducted young man named Claude Bresson fell in love with her. Being a first-rate workman at his trade of a watchmaker, sure to make a capital living in Paris and Anne being very fond of him, Mademoiselle de Scudéri saw no reason to object to their marrying. They set up house accordingly, lived a most quiet and happy domestic life, and the bond between them was knitted more closely still by the birth of a most beautiful boy, the image of his pretty mother.



                             Mademoiselle de Scudéri made an idol of little Olivier, whom she would take away from his mother for hours and days, to pet him and kiss him. Hence he attached himself to her, and was as pleased to be with her as with his mother. When three years had passed, the depressed state of Brusson’s trade brought it about that job-work was scarcer every day, so that at last it was all he could do to get bread to eat. In addition to this came home-sickness for his beautiful native Geneva so the little household went there, in spite of Mademoiselle de Scudéri’s dissuasions and promises of all needful assistance. Anne wrote once or twice to her foster-mother, and then ceased; so that Mademoiselle de Scudéri thought she was forgotten in the happiness of the Brussons’ life.

                It was now just three and twenty years since the Brussons had left Paris for Geneva.

                “Horrible!” cried Mademoiselle de Scudéri, when she had to some extent recovered herself, “You, Olivier! the son of my Anne! And now!”

                “Mademoiselle!” said Olivier, quietly and composedly, “doubtless you never thought that the boy whom you cherished like the tenderest of mothers, whom you dandled on your knee, and to whom you gave sweetmeats, would when grown to manhood stand before you accused of a terrible murder. I am completely innocent! The Chambre Ardente charges me with a crime; but, as I hope to die a Christian’s death, though it may be by the executioner’s hand—I am free from all guilt. Not by my hand—not by any crime of my committing, was it that the unfortunate Cardillac came to his end.”

                As he said this, Olivier began to tremble and shake so, that Mademoiselle de Scudéri motioned him to a little seat which was near him.

                “I have had sufficient time,” he went on, “to prepare myself for this interview with you—which I look upon as the last favour of a merciful Heaven—and to acquire as much calmness and self-control as are necessary to tell you the story of my terrible, unheard-of misfortunes. Be so compassionate as to listen to me calmly, whatever may be your horror at the disclosure of a mystery of which you certainly have not the smallest inkling. Ah! would to Heaven my poor father had never left Paris! As far as my recollections of Geneva carry me, I remember only the tears of my inconsolable parents and my own tears at the sight of their lamentations, which I was unable to understand. Later, there came to me a clear sense a full comprehension—of the bitterest and most grinding poverty, want and privation in which they were living. My father was deceived in all his expectations; bowed down and broken with sorrow, he died, just when he had managed to place me as apprentice with a goldsmith. My mother spoke much of you; she longed to tell you all her misfortunes, but the despondency which springs from poverty prevented her. That, and also, no doubt, false modesty, which often gnaws at a mortally wounded heart, kept her from carrying out her idea. She followed my father to the grave a few months after his death.”