I
hope to succeed, and that soon. And now I must leave you until
tomorrow."
"Thank you, Doctor, thank you," said Madame Dupont, faintly.
The young man rose and accompanied the doctor to the door. He
could not bring himself to speak, but stood hanging his head
until the other was gone. Then he came to his mother. He sought
to embrace her, but she repelled him--without violence, but
firmly.
Her son stepped back and put his hands over his face. "Forgive
me!" he said, in a broken voice. "Are we not unhappy enough,
without hating each other?"
His mother answered: "God has punished you for your debauch by
striking at your child."
But, grief-stricken as the young man was, he could not believe
that. "Impossible!" he said. "There is not even a man
sufficiently wicked or unjust to commit the act which you
attribute to your God!"
"Yes," said his mother, sadly, "you believe in nothing."
"I believe in no such God as that," he answered.
A silence followed. When it was broken, it was by the entrance
of the nurse. She had opened the door of the room and had been
standing there for some moments, unheeded. Finally she stepped
forward. "Madame," she said, "I have thought it over; I would
rather go back to my home at once, and have only the five hundred
francs."
Madame Dupont stared at her in consternation. "What is that you
are saying? You want to return to your home?"
"Yes, ma'am," was the answer.
"But," cried George, "only ten minutes ago you were not thinking
of it.
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