The doctor laughed, contemptuously. "You were told, you were told! I'll
wager that you know the laws of the Chinese concerning party-walls."

"Yes, naturally," said George. "But I don't see what they have to do
with it."

"Instead of teaching you such things," was the reply, "it would have
been a great deal better to have taught you about the nature and cause
of diseases of this sort. Then you would have known how to avoid the
contagion. Such knowledge should be spread abroad, for it is the
most important knowledge in the world. It should be found in every
newspaper."

This remark gave George something of a shock, for his father had owned
a little paper in the provinces, and he had a sudden vision of the way
subscribers would have fallen off, if he had printed even so much as the
name of this vile disease.

"And yet," pursued the doctor, "you publish romances about adultery!"

"Yes," said George, "that's what the readers want."

"They don't want the truth about venereal diseases," exclaimed the
other. "If they knew the full truth, they would no longer think that
adultery was romantic and interesting."

He went on to give his advice as to the means of avoiding such diseases.
There was really but one rule. It was: To love but one woman, to take
her as a virgin, and to love her so much that she would never deceive
you. "Take that from me," added the doctor, "and teach it to your son,
when you have one."

George's attention was caught by this last sentence.

"You mean that I shall be able to have children?" he cried.

"Certainly," was the reply.

"Healthy children?"

"I repeat it to you; if you take care of yourself properly for a long
time, conscientiously, you have little to fear."

"That's certain?"

"Ninety-nine times out of a hundred."

George felt as if he had suddenly emerged from a dungeon. "Why, then,"
he exclaimed, "I shall be able to marry!"

"You will be able to marry," was the reply.

"You are not deceiving me? You would not give me that hope, you would
not expose me? How soon will I be able to marry?"

"In three or four years," said the doctor.

"What!" cried George in consternation. "In three or four years? Not
before?"

"Not before."

"How is that? Am I going to be sick all that time? Why, you told me just
now--"

Said the doctor: "The disease will no longer be dangerous to you,
yourself--but you will be dangerous to others."

"But," the young man cried, in despair, "I am to be married a month from
now."

"That is impossible."

"But I cannot do any differently. The contract is ready! The banns have
been published! I have given my word!"

"Well, you are a great one!" the doctor laughed. "Just now you were
looking for your revolver! Now you want to be married within the month."

"But, Doctor, it is necessary!"

"But I forbid it."

"As soon as I knew that the disease is not what I imagined, and that I
could be cured, naturally I didn't want to commit suicide. And as soon
as I make up my mind not to commit suicide, I have to take up my regular
life. I have to keep my engagements; I have to get married."

"No," said the doctor.

"Yes, yes!" persisted George, with blind obstinacy. "Why, Doctor, if I
didn't marry it would be a disaster. You are talking about something
you don't understand. I, for my part--it is not that I am anxious to be
married. As I told you, I had almost a second family. Lizette's little
brothers adored me. But it is my aunt, an old maid; and, also, my mother
is crazy about the idea. If I were to back out now, she would die of
chagrin. My aunt would disinherit me, and she is the one who has the
family fortune. Then, too, there is my father-in-law, a regular dragoon
for his principles--severe, violent. He never makes a joke of serious
things, and I tell you it would cost me dear, terribly dear. And,
besides, I have given my word."

"You must take back your word."

"You still insist?" exclaimed George, in despair. "But then, suppose
that it were possible, how could I take back my signature which I put at
the bottom of the deed? I have pledged myself to pay in two months for
the attorney's practice I have purchased!"

"Sir," said the doctor, "all these things--"

"You are going to tell me that I was lacking in prudence, that I should
never have disposed of my wife's dowry until after the honeymoon!"

"Sir," said the doctor, again, "all these considerations are foreign to
me. I am a physician, and nothing but a physician, and I can only
tell you this: If you marry before three or four years, you will be a
criminal."

George broke out with a wild exclamation. "No sir, you are not merely a
physician! You are also a confessor! You are not merely a scientist; and
it is not enough for you that you observe me as you would some lifeless
thing in your laboratory, and say, 'You have this; science says that;
now go along with you.' All my existence depends upon you. It is
your duty to listen to me, because when you know everything you will
understand me, and you will find some way to cure me within a month."

"But," protested the doctor, "I wear myself out telling you that such
means do not exist. I shall not be certain of your cure, as much as any
one can be certain, in less than three or four years."

George was almost beside himself. "I tell you you must find some means!
Listen to me, sir--if I don't get married I don't get the dowry! And
will you tell me how I can pay the notes I have signed?"

"Oh," said the doctor, dryly, "if that is the question, it is very
simple--I will give you a plan to get out of the affair. You will go
and get acquainted with some rich man; you will do everything you can to
gain his confidence; and when you have succeeded, you will plunder him."

George shook his head. "I am not in any mood for joking."

"I am not joking," replied his adviser. "Rob that man, assassinate him
even--that would be no worse crime than you would commit in taking a
young girl in good health in order to get a portion of her dowry,
when at the same time you would have to expose her to the frightful
consequences of the disease which you would give her."

"Frightful consequences?" echoed George.

"Consequences of which death would not be the most frightful."

"But, sir, you were saying to me just now--"

"Just now I did not tell you everything. Even reduced, suppressed a
little by our remedies, the disease remains mysterious, menacing, and
in its sum, sufficiently grave. So it would be an infamy to expose your
fiancee in order to avoid an inconvenience, however great that might
be."

But George was still not to be convinced. Was it certain that this
misfortune would befall Henriette, even with the best attention?

Said the other: "I do not wish to lie to you. No, it is not absolutely
certain, it is probable. And there is another truth which I wish to
tell you now: our remedies are not infallible. In a certain number of
cases--a very small number, scarcely five per cent--they have remained
without effect. You might be one of those exceptions, your wife might be
one. What then?"

"I will employ a word you used just now, yourself. We should have to
expect the worst catastrophes."

George sat in a state of complete despair.

"Tell me what to do, then," he said.

"I can tell you only one thing: don't marry. You have a most serious
blemish. It is as if you owed a debt. Perhaps no one will ever come to
claim it; on the other hand, perhaps a pitiless creditor will come all
at once, presenting a brutal demand for immediate payment. Come now--you
are a business man. Marriage is a contract; to marry without saying
anything--that means to enter into a bargain by means of passive
dissimulation. That's the term, is it not? It is dishonesty, and it
ought to come under the law."

George, being a lawyer, could appreciate the argument, and could think
of nothing to say to it.

"What shall I do?" he asked.

The other answered, "Go to your father-in-law and tell him frankly the
truth."

"But," cried the young man, wildly, "there will be no question then of
three or four years' delay. He will refuse his consent altogether."

"If that is the case," said the doctor, "don't tell him anything."

"But I have to give him a reason, or I don't know what he will do. He
is the sort of man to give himself to the worst violence, and again my
fiancee would be lost to me. Listen, doctor. From everything I have said
to you, you may perhaps think I am a mercenary man. It is true that I
want to get along in the world, that is only natural. But Henriette has
such qualities; she is so much better than I, that I love her, really,
as people love in novels. My greatest grief--it is not to give up the
practice I have bought--although, indeed, it would be a bitter blow to
me; my greatest grief would be to lose Henriette. If you could only see
her, if you only knew her--then you would understand. I have her picture
here--"

The young fellow took out his card-case. And offered a photograph to the
doctor, who gently refused it. The other blushed with embarrassment.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "I am ridiculous. That happens to me,
sometimes. Only, put yourself in my place--I love her so!" His voice
broke.

"My dear boy," said the doctor, feelingly, "that is exactly why you
ought not to marry her."

"But," he cried, "if I back out without saying anything they will guess
the truth, and I shall be dishonored."

"One is not dishonored because one is ill."

"But with such a disease! People are so stupid. I myself, yesterday--I
should have laughed at anyone who had got into such a plight; I should
have avoided him, I should have despised him!" And suddenly George
broke down again. "Oh!" he cried, "if I were the only one to suffer; but
she--she is in love with me. I swear it to you! She is so good; and she
will be so unhappy!"

The doctor answered, "She would be unhappier later on."

"It will be a scandal!" George exclaimed.

"You will avoid one far greater," the other replied.

Suddenly George set his lips with resolution. He rose from his seat. He
took several twenty-franc pieces from his pocket and laid them quietly
upon the doctor's desk--paying the fee in cash, so that he would not
have to give his name and address. He took up his gloves, his cane and
his hat, and rose.

"I will think it over," he said. "I thank you, Doctor. I will come back
next week as you have told me. That is--probably I will."

He was about to leave.

The doctor rose, and he spoke in a voice of furious anger. "No," he
said, "I shan't see you next week, and you won't even think it over. You
came here knowing what you had; you came to ask advice of me, with the
intention of paying no heed to it, unless it conformed to your wishes.
A superficial honesty has driven you to take that chance in order to
satisfy your conscience. You wanted to have somebody upon whom you could
put off, bye and bye, the consequences of an act whose culpability you
understand! No, don't protest! Many of those who come here think and act
as you think, and as you wish to act; but the marriage made against
my will has generally been the source of such calamities that now I am
always afraid of not having been persuasive enough, and it even seems to
me that I am a little to blame for these misfortunes. I should have been
able to prevent them; they would not have happened if those who are the
authors of them knew what I know and had seen what I have seen. Swear to
me, sir, that you are going to break off that marriage!"

George was greatly embarrassed, and unwilling to reply. "I cannot swear
to you at all, Doctor; I can only tell you again that I will think it
over."

"That WHAT over?"

"What you have told me."

"What I have told you is true! You cannot bring any new objections; and
I have answered those which you have presented to me; therefore, your
mind ought to be made up."

Groping for a reply, George hesitated. He could not deny that he had
made inquiry about these matters before he had come to the doctor. But
he said that he was not al all certain that he had this disease. The
doctor declared it, and perhaps it was true, but the most learned
physicians were sometimes deceived.

He remembered something he had read in one of the medical books. "Dr.
Ricord maintains that after a certain period the disease is no longer
contagious. He has proven his contentions by examples. Today you produce
new examples to show that he is wrong! Now, I want to do what's right,
but surely I have the right to think it over. And when I think it
over, I realize that all the evils with which you threaten me are only
probable evils. In spite of your desire to terrify me, you have been
forced to admit that possibly my marriage would not have any troublesome
consequence for my wife."

The doctor found difficulty in restraining himself. But he said, "Go on.
I will answer you afterwards."

And George blundered ahead in his desperation. "Your remedies are
powerful, you tell me; and for the calamities of which you speak to
befall me, I would have to be among the rare exceptions--also my
wife would have to be among the number of those rare exceptions. If a
mathematician were to apply the law of chance to these facts, the result
of his operation would show but slight chance of a catastrophe, as
compared with the absolute certainty of a series of misfortunes,
sufferings, troubles, tears, and perhaps tragic accidents which
the breaking of my engagement would cause. So I say that the
mathematician--who is, even more than you, a man of science, a man of
a more infallible science--the mathematician would conclude that wisdom
was not with you doctors, but with me."

"You believe it, sir!" exclaimed the other. "But you deceive yourself."
And he continued, driving home his point with a finger which seemed to
George to pierce his very soul. "Twenty cases identical with your own
have been patiently observed, from the beginning to the end. Nineteen
times the woman was infected by her husband; you hear me, sir, nineteen
times out of twenty! You believe that the disease is without danger, and
you take to yourself the right to expose your wife to what you call the
chance of your being one of those exceptions, for whom our remedies
are without effect. Very well; it is necessary that you should know the
disease which your wife, without being consulted, will run a chance of
contracting. Take that book, sir; it is the work of my teacher. Read it
yourself. Here, I have marked the passage."

He held out the open book; but George could not lift a hand to take it.

"You do not wish to read it?" the other continued. "Listen to me."
And in a voice trembling with passion, he read: "'I have watched the
spectacle of an unfortunate young woman, turned into a veritable monster
by means of a syphilitic infection. Her face, or rather let me say
what was left of her face, was nothing but a flat surface seamed with
scars.'"

George covered his face, exclaiming, "Enough, sir! Have mercy!"

But the other cried, "No, no! I will go to the very end. I have a
duty to perform, and I will not be stopped by the sensibility of your
nerves."

He went on reading: "'Of the upper lip not a trace was left; the ridge
of the upper gums appeared perfectly bare.'" But then at the young man's
protests, his resolution failed him. "Come," he said, "I will stop. I am
sorry for you--you who accept for another person, for the woman you say
you love, the chance of a disease which you cannot even endure to hear
described. Now, from whom did that woman get syphilis? It is not I who
am speaking, it is the book. 'From a miserable scoundrel who was not
afraid to enter into matrimony when he had a secondary eruption.' All
that was established later on--'and who, moreover, had thought it best
not to let his wife be treated for fear of awakening her suspicions!'"

The doctor closed the book with a bang. "What that man has done, sir, is
what you want to do."

George was edging toward the door; he could no longer look the doctor in
the eye. "I should deserve all those epithets and still more brutal ones
if I should marry, knowing that my marriage would cause such horrors.
But that I do not believe. You and your teachers--you are specialists,
and consequently you are driven to attribute everything to the disease
you make the subject of your studies. A tragic case, an exceptional
case, holds a kind of fascination for you; you think it can never be
talked about enough."

"I have heard that argument before," said the doctor, with an effort at
patience.

"Let me go on, I beg you," pleaded George. "You have told me that out of
every seven men there is one syphilitic. You have told me that there are
one hundred thousand in Paris, coming and going, alert, and apparently
well."

"It is true," said the doctor, "that there are one hundred thousand
who are actually at this moment not visibly under the influence of the
disease. But many thousands have passed into our hospitals, victims of
the most frightful ravages that our poor bodies can support. These--you
do not see them, and they do not count for you. But again, if it
concerned no one but yourself, you might be able to argue thus. What I
declare to you, what I affirm with all the violence of my conviction,
is that you have not the right to expose a human creature to such
chances--rare, as I know, but terrible, as I know still better. What
have you to answer to that?"

"Nothing," stammered George, brought to his knees at last. "You are
right about that. I don't know what to think."

"And in forbidding you marriage," continued the doctor, "is it the same
as if I forbade it forever? Is it the same as if I told you that you
could never be cured? On the contrary, I hold out to you every hope; but
I demand of you a delay of three or four years, because it will take me
that time to find out if you are among the number of those unfortunate
ones whom I pity with all my heart, for whom the disease is without
mercy; because during that time you will be dangerous to your wife and
to your children. The children I have not yet mentioned to you."

Here the doctor's voice trembled slightly. He spoke with moving
eloquence. "Come, sir, you are an honest man; you are too young for such
things not to move you; you are not insensible to duty. It is impossible
that I shan't be able to find a way to your heart, that I shan't be
able to make you obey me. My emotion in speaking to you proves that I
appreciate your suffering, that I suffer with you. It is in the name of
my sincerity that I implore you. You have admitted it--that you have not
the right to expose your wife to such miseries. But it is not only your
wife that you strike; you may attack in her your own children. I exclude
you for a moment from my thought--you and her. It is in the name of
these innocents that I implore you; it is the future, it is the race
that I defend. Listen to me, listen to me! Out of the twenty households
of which I spoke, only fifteen had children; these fifteen had
twenty-eight. Do you know how many out of these twenty-eight survived?
Three, sir! Three out of twenty-eight! Syphilis is above everything a
murderer of children. Herod reigns in France, and over all the earth,
and begins each year his massacre of the innocents; and if it be not
blasphemy against the sacredness of life, I say that the most happy are
those who have disappeared. Visit our children's hospitals! We know too
well the child of syphilitic parents; the type is classical; the doctors
can pick it out anywhere. Those little old creatures who have the
appearance of having already lived, and who have kept the stigmata of
all out infirmities, of all our decay. They are the victims of fathers
who have married, being ignorant of what you know--things which I should
like to go and cry out in the public places."

The doctor paused, and then in a solemn voice continued: "I have told
you all, without exaggeration. Think it over. Consider the pros and
cons; sum up the possible misfortunes and the certain miseries. But
disregard yourself, and consider that there are in one side of the
scales the misfortunes of others, and in the other your own. Take care
that you are just."

George was at last overcome. "Very well," he said, "I give way. I
won't get married. I will invent some excuse; I will get a delay of six
months. More than that, I cannot do."

The doctor exclaimed, "I need three years--I need four years!"

"No, Doctor!" persisted George. "You can cure me in less time than
that."

The other answered, "No! No! No!"

George caught him by the hand, imploringly. "Yes! Science in all
powerful!"

"Science is not God," was the reply. "There are no longer any miracles."

"If only you wanted to do it!" cried the young man, hysterically. "You
are a learned man; seek, invent, find something! Try some new plan with
me; give me double the dose, ten times the does; make me suffer. I give
myself up to you; I will endure everything--I swear it! There ought to
be some way to cure me within six months. Listen to me! I tell you I
can't answer for myself with that delay. Come; it is in the name of my
wife, in the name of my children, that I implore you. Do something for
them!"

The doctor had reached the limit of his patience. "Enough, sir!" he
cried. "Enough!"

But nothing could stop the wretched man. "On my knees!" he cried. "I
put myself on my knees before you! Oh! If only you would do it! I would
bless you; I would adore you, as one adores a god! All my gratitude, all
my life--half my fortune! For mercy's sake, Doctor, do something; invent
something; make some discovery--have pity!"

The doctor answered gravely, "Do you wish me to do more for you than for
the others?"

George answered, unblushingly, 'answered, unblushingly, "Yes!" He was
beside himself with terror and distress.

The other's reply was delivered in a solemn tone. "Understand, sir,
for every one of out patients we do all that we can, whether it be the
greatest personage, or the last comer to out hospital clinic. We have no
secrets in reserve for those who are more fortunate, or less fortunate
than the others, and who are in a hurry to be cured."

George gazed at him for a moment in bewilderment and despair, and then
suddenly bowed his head. "Good-by, Doctor," he answered.

"Au revoir, sir," the other corrected--with what proved to be prophetic
understanding. For George was destined to see him again--even though he
had made up his mind to the contrary!



CHAPTER III

George Dupont had the most important decision of his life to make; but
there was never very much doubt what his decision would be. One the one
hand was the definite certainty that if he took the doctor's advice, he
would wreck his business prospects, and perhaps also lose the woman he
loved. On the other hand were vague and uncertain possibilities which it
was difficult for him to make real to himself. It was all very well to
wait a while to be cured of the dread disease; but to wait three or four
years--that was simply preposterous!

He decided to consult another physician. He would find one this time who
would not be so particular, who would be willing to take some trouble
to cure him quickly. He began to notice the advertisements which
were scattered over the pages of the newspapers he read. There were
apparently plenty of doctors in Paris who could cure him, who were
willing to guarantee to cure him. After much hesitation, he picked out
one whose advertisement sounded the most convincing.

The office was located in a cheap quarter. It was a dingy place, not
encumbered with works of art, but with a few books covered with dust.
The doctor himself was stout and greasy, and he rubbed his hands with
anticipation at the sight of so prosperous-looking a patient. But he was
evidently a man of experience, for he knew exactly what was the matter
with George, almost without the formality of an examination. Yes,
he could cure him, quickly, he said. There had recently been great
discoveries made--new methods which had not reached the bulk of the
profession. He laughed at the idea of three or four years. That was
the way with those specialists! When one got forty francs for a
consultation, naturally, one was glad to drag out the case. There were
tricks in the medical trade, as in all others. A doctor had to live;
when he had a big name, he had to live expensively.

The new physician wrote out two prescriptions, and patted George on the
shoulder as he went away. There was no need for him to worry; he would
surely be well in three months. If he would put off his marriage for six
months, he would be doing everything within reason. And meantime, there
was no need for him to worry himself--things would come out all right.
So George went away, feeling as if a mountain had been lifted from his
shoulders.

He went to see Henriette that same evening, to get the matter
settled. "Henriette," he said, "I have to tell you something very
important--something rather painful. I hope you won't let it disturb you
too much."

She was gazing at him in alarm. "What is it?"

"Why," he said, blushing in spite of himself, and regretting that he had
begun the matter so precipitately, "for some time I've not been feeling
quite well. I've been having a slight cough. Have you noticed it?"

"Why no!" exclaimed Henriette, anxiously.

"Well, today I went to see a doctor, and he says that there is a
possibility--you understand it is nothing very serious--but it might
be--I might possibly have lung trouble."

"George!" cried the girl in horror.

He put his hand upon hers. "Don't be frightened," he said. "It will be
all right, only I have to take care of myself." How very dear of her, he
thought--to be so much worried!

"George, you ought to go away to the country!" she cried. "You have
been working too hard. I always told you that if you shut yourself up so
much--"

"I am going to take care of myself," he said. "I realize that it is
necessary. I shall be all right--the doctor assured me there was no
doubt of it, so you are not to distress yourself. But meantime, here is
the trouble: I don't think it would be right for me to marry until I am
perfectly well."

Henriette gave an exclamation of dismay.

"I am sure we should put it off," he went on, "it would be only fair to
you."

"But, George!" she protested. "Surely it can't be that serious!"

"We ought to wait," he said. "You ought not to take the chance of being
married to a consumptive."

The other protested in consternation. He did not look like a
consumptive; she did not believe that he WAS a consumptive. She was
willing to take her chances. She loved him, and she was not afraid. But
George insisted--he was sure that he ought not to marry for six months.

"Did the doctor advise that?" asked Henriette.

"No," he replied, "but I made up my mind after talking to him that I
must do the fair and honorable thing. I beg you to forgive me, and to
believe that I know best."

George stood firmly by this position, and so in the end she had to give
way. It did not seem quite modest in her to continue persisting.

George volunteered to write a letter to her father; and he hoped this
would settle the matter without further discussion. But in this he was
disappointed. There had to be a long correspondence with long arguments
and protestations from Henriette's father and from his own mother.
It seemed such a singular whim. Everybody persisted in diagnosing his
symptoms, in questioning him about what the doctor had said, who the
doctor was, how he had come to consult him--all of which, of course, was
very embarrassing to George, who could not see why they had to make such
a fuss. He took to cultivating a consumptive look, as well as he could
imagine it; he took to coughing as he went about the house--and it was
all he could do to keep from laughing, as he saw the look of dismay on
his poor mother's face. After all, however, he told himself that he
was not deceiving her, for the disease he had was quite as serious as
tuberculosis.

It was very painful and very trying. But there was nothing that could be
done about it; the marriage had been put off for six months, and in the
meantime he and Henriette had to control their impatience and make the
best of their situation. Six months was a long time; but what if it had
been three or four years, as the other doctor had demanded? That would
have been a veritable sentence of death.

George, as we have seen, was conscientious, and regular and careful in
his habits. He took the medicine which the new doctor prescribed
for him; and day by day he watched, and to his great relief saw the
troublesome symptoms gradually disappearing. He began to take heart,
and to look forward to life with his former buoyancy. He had had a bad
scare, but now everything was going to be all right.

Three or four months passed, and the doctor told him he was cured. He
really was cured, so far as he could see. He was sorry, now, that he
had asked for so long a delay from Henriette; but the new date for the
wedding had been announced, and it would be awkward to change it again.
George told himself that he was being "extra careful," and he was repaid
for the inconvenience by the feeling of virtue derived from the delay.
He was relieved that he did not have to cough any more, or to invent
any more tales of his interviews with the imaginary lung-specialist.
Sometimes he had guilty feelings because of all the lying he had had to
do; but he told himself that it was for Henriette's sake. She loved him
as much as he loved her. She would have suffered needless agonies had
she known the truth; she would never have got over it--so it would have
been a crime to tell her.

He really loved her devotedly, thoroughly. From the beginning he had
thought as much of her mental sufferings as he had of any physical harm
that the dread disease might do to him. How could he possibly persuade
himself to give her up, when he knew that the separation would break her
heart and ruin her whole life? No; obviously, in such a dilemma, it was
his duty to use his own best judgment, and get himself cured as quickly
as possible. After that he would be true to her, he would take no more
chances of a loathsome disease.

The secret he was hiding made him feel humble--made him unusually gentle
in his attitude towards the girl. He was a perfect lover, and she
was ravished with happiness. She thought that all his sufferings were
because of his love for her, and the delay which he had imposed out of
his excess of conscientiousness. So she loved him more and more, and
never was there a happier bride than Henriette Loches, when at last the
great day arrived.

They went to the Riveria for their honeymoon, and then returned to live
in the home which had belonged to George's father. The investment in
the notary's practice had proven a good one, and so life held out every
promise for the young couple. They were divinely happy.

After a while, the bride communicated to her husband the tidings that
she was expecting a child. Then it seemed to George that the cup of his
earthly bliss was full. His ailment had slipped far into the background
of his thoughts, like an evil dream which he had forgotten. He put away
the medicines in the bottom of his trunk and dismissed the whole matter
from his mind. Henriette was well--a very picture of health, as every
one agreed. The doctor had never seen a more promising young mother, he
declared, and Madame Dupont, the elder, bloomed with fresh life and joy
as she attended her daughter-in-law.

Henriette went for the summer to her father's place in the provinces,
which she and George had visited before their marriage. They drove out
one day to the farm where they had stopped. The farmer's wife had a
week-old baby, the sight of which made Henriette's heart leap with
delight. He was such a very healthy baby that George conceived the idea
that this would be the woman to nurse his own child, in case Henriette
herself should not be able to do it.

They came back to the city, and there the baby was born. As George paced
the floor, waiting for the news, the memory of his evil dreams came back
to him. He remembered all the dreadful monstrosities of which he had
read--infants that were born of syphilitic parents. His heart stood
still when the nurse came into the room to tell him the tidings.

But it was all right; of course it was all right! He had been a fool,
he told himself, as he stood in the darkened room and gazed at the
wonderful little mite of life which was the fruit of his love. It was a
perfect child, the doctor said--a little small, to be sure, but that was
a defect which would soon be remedied. George kneeled by the bedside and
kissed the hand of his wife, and went out of the room feeling as if he
had escaped from a tomb.

All went well, and after a couple of weeks Henriette was about the house
again, laughing all day and singing with joy. But the baby did not gain
quite as rapidly as the doctor had hoped, and it was decided that the
country air would be better for her. So George and his mother paid a
visit to the farm in the country, and arranged that the country woman
should put her own child to nurse elsewhere and should become the
foster-mother of little Gervaise.

George paid a good price for the service, far more than would have been
necessary, for the simple country woman was delighted with the idea of
taking care of the grandchild of the deputy of her district. George came
home and told his wife about this and had a merry time as he pictured
the woman boasting about it to the travelers who stopped at her door.
"Yes, ma'am, a great piece of luck I've got, ma'am. I've got the
daughter of the daughter of our deputy--at your service ma'am. My!
But she is as fat as out little calf--and so clever! She understands
everything. A great piece of luck for me, ma'am. She's the daughter
of the daughter of our deputy!" Henriette was vastly entertained,
discovering in her husband a new talent, that of an actor.

As for George's mother, she was hardly to be persuaded from staying in
the country with the child. She went twice a week, to make sure that all
went well. Henriette and she lived with the child's picture before them;
they spent their time sewing on caps and underwear--all covered with
laces and frills and pink and blue ribbons. Every day, when George
came home from his work, he found some new article completed, and was
ravished by the scent of some new kind of sachet powder. What a lucky
man he was!

You would think he must have been the happiest man in the whole city
of Paris. But George, alas, had to pay the penalty for his early sins.
There was, for instance, the deception he had practiced upon his friend,
away back in the early days. Now he had friends of his own, and he could
not keep these friends from visiting him; and so he was unquiet with the
fear that some one of them might play upon him the same vile trick. Even
in the midst of his radiant happiness, when he knew that Henriette was
hanging upon his every word, trembling with delight when she heard his
latchkey in the door--still he could not drive away the horrible thought
that perhaps all this might be deception.

There was his friend, Gustave, for example. He had been a friend of
Henriette's before her marriage; he had even been in love with her at
one time. And now he came sometimes to the house--once or twice when
George was away! What did that mean? George wondered. He brooded over
it all day, but dared not drop any hint to Henriette. But he took to
setting little traps to catch her; for instance, he would call her up on
the telephone, disguising his voice. "Hello! Hello! Is that you, Madame
Dupont?" And when she answered, "It is I, sir," all unsuspecting, he
would inquire, "Is George there?"

"No, sir," she replied. "Who is this speaking?"

He answered, "It is I, Gustave. How are you this morning?" He wanted to
see what she would answer. Would she perhaps say, "Very well, Gustave.
How are you?"--in a tone which would betray too great intimacy!

But Henriette was a sharp young person. The tone did not sound like
Gustave's. She asked in bewilderment, "What?" and then again, "What?"

So, at last, George, afraid that his trick might be suspected, had to
burst out laughing, and turn it into a joke. But when he came home and
teased his wife about it, the laugh was not all on his side. Henriette
had guessed the real meaning of his joke! She did not really mind--she
took his jealousy as a sign of love, and was pleased with it. It is
not until a third party come upon the scene that jealousy begins to be
annoying.

So she had a merry time teasing George. "You are a great fellow!
You have no idea how well I understand you--and after only a year of
marriage!"

"You know me?" said the husband, curiously. (It is always so fascinating
when anybody thinks she know us better than we know ourselves!) "Tell
me, what do you think about me?"

"You are restless," said Henriette. "You are suspicious. You pass your
time putting flies in your milk, and inventing wise schemes to get them
out."

"Oh, you think that, do you?" said George, pleased to be talked about.

"I am not annoyed," she answered. "You have always been that way--and I
know that it's because at bottom you are timid and disposed to suffer.
And then, too, perhaps you have reasons for not having confidence in a
wife's intimate friends--lady-killer that you are!"

George found this rather embarrassing; but he dared not show it, so he
laughed gayly. "I don't know what you mean," he said--"upon my word I
don't. But it is a trick I would not advise everybody to try."

There were other embarrassing moments, caused by George's having things
to conceal. There was, for instance, the matter of the six months' delay
in the marriage--about which Henriette would never stop talking. She
begrudged the time, because she had got the idea that little Gervaise
was six months younger than she otherwise would have been. "That shows
your timidity again," she would say. "The idea of your having imagined
yourself a consumptive!"

Poor George had to defend himself. "I didn't tell you half the truth,
because I was afraid of upsetting you. It seemed I had the beginning of
chronic bronchitis. I felt it quite keenly whenever I took a breath, a
deep breath--look, like this. Yes--I felt--here and there, on each side
of the chest, a heaviness--a difficulty--"

"The idea of taking six months to cure you of a thing like that!"
exclaimed Henriette. "And making our baby six months younger than she
ought to be!"

"But," laughed George, "that means that we shall have her so much the
longer! She will get married six months later!"

"Oh, dear me," responded the other, "let us not talk about such things!
I am already worried, thinking she will get married some day."

"For my part," said George, "I see myself mounting with her on my arm
the staircase of the Madeleine."

"Why the Madeleine?" exclaimed his wife. "Such a very magnificent
church!"

"I don't know--I see her under her white veil, and myself all dressed
up, and with an order."

"With an order!" laughed Henriette. "What do you expect to do to win an
order?"

"I don't know that--but I see myself with it. Explain it as you will, I
see myself with an order. I see it all, exactly as if I were there--the
Swiss guard with his white stockings and the halbard, and the little
milliner's assistants and the scullion lined up staring."

"It is far off--all that," said Henriette. "I don't like to talk of it.
I prefer her as a baby. I want her to grow up--but then I change my
mind and think I don't. I know your mother doesn't. Do you know, I don't
believe she ever thinks about anything but her little Gervaise."

"I believe you," said the father. "The child can certainly boast of
having a grandmother who loves her."

"Also, I adore your mother," declared Henriette. "She makes me forget my
misfortune in not having my own mother. She is so good!"

"We are all like that in our family," put in George.

"Really," laughed the wife. "Well, anyhow--the last time that we went
down in the country with her--you had gone out, I don't know where you
had gone--"

"To see the sixteenth-century chest," suggested the other.

"Oh, yes," laughed Henriette; "your famous chest!" (You must excuse this
little family chatter of theirs--they were so much in love with each
other!)

"Don't let's talk about that," objected George. "You were saying--?"

"You were not there. The nurse was out at mass, I think--"

"Or at the wine merchant's! Go on, go on."

"Well, I was in the little room, and mother dear thought she was all
alone with Gervaise. I was listening; she was talking to the baby--all
sorts of nonsense, pretty little words--stupid, if you like, but tender.
I wanted to laugh, and at the same time I wanted to weep."

"Perhaps she called her 'my dear little Savior'?"

"Exactly! Did you hear her?"

"No--but that is what she used to call me when I was little."

"It was that day she swore that the little one had recognized her, and
laughed!"

"Oh, yes!"

"And then another time, when I went into her room--mother's room--she
didn't hear me because the door was open, but I saw her. She was in
ecstasy before the little boots which the baby wore at baptism--you
know?"

"Yes, yes."

"Listen, then. She had taken them and she was embracing them!"

"And what did you say then?"

"Nothing; I stole out very softly, and I sent across the threshold a
great kiss to the dear grandmother!"

Henriette sat for a moment in thought. "It didn't take her very long,"
she remarked, "today when she got the letter from the nurse. I imagine
she caught the eight-fifty-nine train!"

"Any yet," laughed George, "it was really nothing at all."

"Oh no," said his wife. "Yet after all, perhaps she was right--and
perhaps I ought to have gone with her."

"How charming you are, my poor Henriette! You believe everything you are
told. I, for my part, divined right away the truth. The nurse was simply
playing a game on us; she wanted a raise. Will you bet? Come, I'll bet
you something. What would you like to bet? You don't want to? Come, I'll
bet you a lovely necklace--you know, with a big pearl."

"No," said Henriette, who had suddenly lost her mood of gayety. "I
should be too much afraid of winning."

"Stop!" laughed her husband. "Don't you believe I love her as much as
you love her--my little duck? Do you know how old she is? I mean her
EXACT age?"

Henriette sat knitting her brows, trying to figure.

"Ah!" he exploded. "You see you don't know! She is ninety-one days and
eight hours! Ha, ha! Imagine when she will be able to walk all alone.
Then we will take her back with us; we must wait at least six months."
Then, too late, poor George realized that he had spoken the fatal phrase
again.

"If only you hadn't put off our marriage, she would be able to walk
now," said Henriette.

He rose suddenly. "Come," he said, "didn't you say you had to dress and
pay some calls?"

Henriette laughed, but took the hint.

"Run along, little wife," he said. "I have a lot of work to do in the
meantime. You won't be down-stairs before I shall have my nose buried in
my papers. Bye-bye."

"Bye-bye," said Henriette. But they paused to exchange a dozen or so
kisses before she went away to dress.

Then George lighted a cigarette and stretched himself out in the big
armchair. He seemed restless; he seemed to be disturbed about something.
Could it be that he had not been so much at ease as he had pretended to
be, since the letter had come from the baby's nurse? Madame Dupont had
gone by the earliest train that morning. She had promised to telegraph
at once--but she had not done so, and now it was late afternoon.

George got up and wandered about. He looked at himself in the glass for
a moment; then he went back to the chair and pulled up another to put
his geet upon. He puffed away at his cigarette until he was calmer. But
then suddenly he heard the rustle of a dress behind him, and glanced
about, and started up with an exclamation, "Mother!"

Madame Dupont stood in the doorway. She did not speak. Her veil was
thrown back and George noted instantly the look of agitation upon her
countenance.

"What's the matter?" he cried. "We didn't get any telegram from you; we
were not expecting you till tomorrow."

Still his mother did not speak.

"Henriette was just going out," he exclaimed nervously; "I had better
call her."

"No!" said his mother quickly. Her voice was low and trembling. "I did
not want Henriette to be here when I arrived."

"But what's the matter?" cried George.

Again there was a silence before the reply came. He read something
terrible in the mother's manner, and he found himself trembling
violently.

"I have brought back the child and the nurse," said Madame Dupont.

"What! Is the little one sick?"

"Yes."

"What's the matter with her?"

"Nothing dangerous--for the moment, at least."

"We must send and get the doctor!" cried George.

"I have just come from the doctor's," was the reply. "He said it was
necessary to take our child from the nurse and bring her up on the
bottle."

Again there was a pause. George could hardly bring himself to ask
the next question. Try as he would, he could not keep his voice from
weakening. "Well, now, what is her trouble?"

The mother did not answer. She stood staring before her. At last she
said, faintly, "I don't know."

"You didn't ask?"

"I asked. But it was not to our own doctor that I went."

"Ah!" whispered George. For nearly a minute neither one of them spoke.
"Why?" he inquired at last.

"Because--he--the nurse's doctor--had frightened me so--"

"Truly?"

"Yes. It is a disease--" again she stopped.

George cried, in a voice of agony, "and then?"

"Then I asked him if the matter was so grave that I could not be
satisfied with our ordinary doctor."

"And what did he answer?"

"He said that if we had the means it would really be better to consult a
specialist."

George looked at his mother again. He was able to do it, because she
was not looking at him. He clenched his hands and got himself together.
"And--where did he send you?"

His mother fumbled in her hand bag and drew out a visiting card. "Here,"
she said.

And George looked at the card. It was all he could do to keep himself
from tottering. It was the card of the doctor whom he had first
consulted about his trouble! The specialist in venereal diseases!



CHAPTER IV

It was all George could do to control his voice. "You--you went to see
him?" he stammered.

"Yes," said his mother. "You know him?"

"No, no," he answered. "Or--that is--I have met him, I think. I don't
know." And then to himself, "My God!"

There was a silence. "He is coming to talk to you," said the mother, at
last.

George was hardly able to speak. "Then he is very much disturbed?"

"No, but he wants to talk to you."

"To me?"

"Yes. When the doctor saw the nurse, he said, 'Madame, it is impossible
for me to continue to attend this child unless I have had this very day
a conversation with the father.' So I said 'Very well,' and he said he
would come at once."

George turned away, and put his hands to his forehead. "My poor little
daughter!" he whispered to himself.

"Yes," said the mother, her voice breaking, "she is, indeed, a poor
little daughter!"

A silence fell; for what could words avail in such a situation? Hearing
the door open, Madame Dupont started, for her nerves were all a-quiver
with the strain she had been under. A servant came in and spoke to her,
and she said to George, "It is the doctor. If you need me, I shall be in
the next room."

Her son stood trembling, as if he were waiting the approach of an
executioner. The other came into the room without seeing him and he
stood for a minute, clasping and unclasping his hands, almost overcome
with emotion. Then he said, "Good-day, doctor." As the man stared at
him, surprised and puzzled, he added, "You don't recognize me?"

The doctor looked again, more closely. George was expecting him to break
out in rage; but instead his voice fell low. "You!" he exclaimed. "It is
you!"

At last, in a voice of discouragement than of anger, he went on, "You
got married, and you have a child! After all that I told you! You are a
wretch!"

"Sir," cried George, "let me explain to you!"

"Not a word!" exclaimed the other. "There can be no explanation for what
you have done."

A silence followed. The young man did not know what to say. Finally,
stretching out his arms, he pleaded, "You will take care of my little
daughter all the same, will you not?"

The other turned away with disgust. "Imbecile!" he said.

George did not hear the word. "I was able to wait only six months," he
murmured.

The doctor answered in a voice of cold self-repression, "That is enough,
sir! All that does not concern me. I have done wrong even to let you see
my indignation. I should have left you to judge yourself. I have nothing
to do here but with the present and with the future--with the infant and
with the nurse."

"She isn't in danger?" cried George.

"The nurse is in danger of being contaminated."

But George had not been thinking about the nurse. "I mean my child," he
said.

"Just at present the symptoms are not disturbing."

George waited; after a while he began, "You were saying about the nurse.
Will you consent that I call my mother? She knows better than I."

"As you wish," was the reply.

The young man started to the door, but came back, in terrible distress.
"I have one prayer to offer you sir; arrange it so that my wife--so that
no one will know. If my wife learned that it is I who am the cause--! It
is for her that I implore you! She--she isn't to blame."

Said the doctor: "I will do everything in my power that she may be kept
ignorant of the true nature of the disease."

"Oh, how I thank you!" murmured George. "How I thank you!"

"Do not thank me; it is for her, and not for you, that I will consent to
lie."

"And my mother?"

"Your mother knows the truth."

"But--"

"I pray you, sir--we have enough to talk about, and very serious
matters."