File No. 113 by Émile Gaboriau (summer beach reads .txt) 📕

a goblet with the two liquors mixed, and handed it to Raoul.

“Drink this,” he said in a tone of command.

Raoul emptied the glass at one draught, and a faint color returned to his ashy cheeks. He arose, and snatching up his hat, cried fiercely:

“Come along!”

But before he had walked half a square, the factitious energy inspired by drink deserted him.

He clung to Clameran’s arm, and was almost dragged along in the direction of the banker’s house, trembling like a criminal on his way to the scaffold.

“If I can once get him in the house,” thought Louis, “and make him begin, the excitement of his mother’s opposition will make him carry it through successfully. The cowardly baby! I would like to wring his neck!”

Although his breast was filled with these thoughts and fears, he was careful to conceal them from Raoul, and said soothingly:

“Now, don’t forget our arrangement, and be careful how you enter the house; everything depends upon your being unconcerned and cool, to avoid arousing suspicion in the eyes of anyone you may meet. Have you a pistol in your pocket?”

“Yes, yes! Let me alone!”

It was well that Clameran had accompanied Raoul; for, when he got in sight of the door, his courage gave way, and he longed to retreat.

“A poor, helpless woman!” he groaned, “and an honest man who pressed my hand in friendship yesterday, to be cowardly ruined, betrayed by me! Ah, it is too base! I cannot!”

“Come, don’t be a coward! I thought you had more nerve. Why, you might as well have remained virtuous and honest; you will never earn your salt in this sort of business.”

Raoul overcame his weakness, and, silencing the clamors of his conscience, rushed up the steps, and pulled the bell furiously.

“Is Mme. Fauvel at home?” he inquired of the servant who opened the door.

“Madame is alone in the sitting-room adjoining her chamber,” was the reply.

Raoul went upstairs.

XX

Clameran’s last injunction to Raoul was:

“Be very cautious when you enter the room; your appearance must tell everything, so you can avoid preliminary explanations.”

The recommendation was useless.

The instant that Raoul went into the little salon, the sight of his pale, haggard face and wild eyes caused Mme. Fauvel to spring up with clasped hands, and cry out:

“Raoul! What has happened? Speak, my son!”

The sound of her tender, affectionate voice acted like an electric shock upon the young bandit. He shook like a leaf. But at the same time his mind seemed to change. Louis was not mistaken in his estimate of his companion’s character. Raoul was on the stage, his part was to be played; his assurance returned to him; his cheating, lying nature assumed the ascendant, and stifled any better feeling in his heart.

“This misfortune is the last I shall ever suffer, mother!”

Mme. Fauvel rushed toward him, and, seizing his hand, gazed searchingly into his eyes, as if to read his very soul.

“What is the matter? Raoul, my dear son, do tell me what troubles you.”

He gently pushed her from him.

“The matter is, my mother,” he said in a voice of heartbroken despair, “that I am an unworthy, degenerate son! Unworthy of you, unworthy of my noble father!”

She tried to comfort him by saying that his errors were all her fault, and that he was, in spite of all, the pride of her heart.

“Alas!” he said, “I know and judge myself. No one can reproach me for my infamous conduct more bitterly than does my own conscience. I am not naturally wicked, but only a miserable fool. At times I am like an insane man, and am not responsible for my actions. Ah, my dear mother, I would not be what I am, if you had watched over my childhood. But brought up among strangers, with no guide but my own evil passions, nothing to restrain me, no one to advise me, no one to love me, owning nothing, not even my stolen name, I am cursed with vanity and unbounded ambition. Poor, with no one to assist me but you, I have the tastes and vices of a millionnaire’s son.

“Alas for me! When I found you, the evil was done. Your affection, your maternal love, the only true happiness of my life, could not save me. I, who had suffered so much, endured so many privations, even the pangs of hunger, became spoiled by this new life of luxury and pleasure which you opened before me. I rushed headlong into extravagance, as a drunkard long deprived of liquor seizes and drains to the dregs the first bottle in his reach.”

Mme. Fauvel listened, silent and terrified, to these words of despair and remorse, which Raoul uttered with vehemence.

She dared not interrupt him, but felt certain some dreadful piece of news was coming.

Raoul continued in a sad, hopeless tone:

“Yes, I have been a weak fool. Happiness was within my reach, and I had not the sense to stretch forth my hand and grab it. I rejected a heavenly reality to eagerly pursue a vain phantom. I, who ought to have spent my life at your feet, and daily striven to express my gratitude for your lavish kindness, have made you unhappy, destroyed your peace of mind, and, instead of being a blessing, I have been a curse ever since the first fatal day you welcomed me to your kind heart. Ah, unfeeling brute that I was, to squander upon creatures whom I despised, a fortune, of which each gold piece must have cost you a tear! Too late, too late! With you I might have been a good and happy man!”

He stopped, as if overcome by the conviction of his evil deeds, and seemed about to burst into tears.

“It is never too late to repent, my son,” murmured Mme. Fauvel in comforting tones.

“Ah, if I only could!” cried Raoul; “but no, it is too late! Besides, can I tell how long my good resolutions will last? This is not the first time that I have condemned myself pitilessly. Stinging remorse for each new