The sight of the Duke made the invalid exuberant with joy. She constantly forgot her duties as maid of honour to draw near the loved being.

Doctor Potain watched her closely, and made a thorough examination. He knew nothing of her love for the Duke, but when the latter questioned him about her health, he said, "There is only one chance of restoring her health. She must go back on the stage."

The Duke jumped. "Impossible!" he said.

"Why impossible? Her fiance is dead."

The Duke spoke to the man of science. "Listen to me, Doctor, I am passionately in love with this girl who loved me, but only remembers that at intervals.... I cannot, indeed...."

"Approve of her going on the stage? Urge her yourself, and you will save her. When she is cured if she loves you, as you believe, she will leave everything to follow you; but now neurasthenia or madness await her. She must be roused to work outside herself. Do as I tell you and you will invite me to your wedding."

The Duke went straight to find Francois Darbois. Maurice would have retired. "No," said the Duke to him, "I want you to stay," and he told them word for word what the Doctor had said.

"Well, what do you think?" Francois Darbois asked him.

"I think that the most important thing in all the world is to save her! I will wait...."

Francois pressed his hand, and there was taken between these two men, who were so different in every way, a silent pledge that both were determined to keep at all costs.

From that instant each one strained every nerve to revive in Esperance her dearest desire.

Several days after this visit, Esperance received a letter from the Comedie-Francaise, asking her to come to the office. She turned pink. Her lovely forehead brightened for the first time in many months. She handed the letter to her father, who knew what it contained, and had been watching his child's surprise very closely.

"We must go back to Paris, father, I feel entirely well."

"Good, Mademoiselle, we will obey your orders," he said tenderly.

She kissed her father as she used to do, and began to tease him a little.

"How nice it is to have such an agreeable papa! You have plenty of cause to be severe, for I give you endless trouble."

"So you are to make your debut at the Comedie-Francaise?"

"My God!" said the young girl, starting up, "that might cost you your election!"

Francois Darbois began to laugh, for his joy returned to him when his daughter's memory came back to her.

"Leave my election alone. They won't even nominate me, and I shall not worry."

Mme. Darbois came in and Francois pretended to disclose the news to her. She assumed surprise. To hide her emotion, she took her daughter in a long embrace.

Maurice had taken his young wife to Italy, to show her in its most harmonious setting the most beautiful aspirations of art towards the ideal. The Duke de Morlay travelled there with them, adoring Italy as does every devotee of art. There was not a corner of this rare country that he did not know.

The sojourn of the young couple in Italy was pure enchantment. Maurice was constantly surprised by the intellectual strength of his companion. Like most artists he had an indulgent scorn for what so many call and think the worldly class. When he originally met the Duke he had recognized his cultivation, and found that his eclecticism was exact, profound, and not the superficial veneer he had at first supposed. He realized that men of the world do not vaunt their knowledge, though it is often far deeper than that of certain artists who never go below the depths of but one art: their own.

Almost every day Maurice received a letter or telegram giving him news of his cousin. The advice of Doctor Potain seemed to be justifying itself. Every day Esperance began to recover her health and spirits. She was rehearsing at the Comedie, and her debut in On ne badine pas avec l'amour was announced for the next month.

The travellers had intended to spend another ten days in Italy. But a letter to Genevieve alarmed them. She read it aloud.

"My darling, I am just now the happiest girl in the world. First because my dear cousin is seeing so many beautiful things that shine through her letters and show her so enchanted with life that I feel the stimulus myself, and long to live to go myself to breathe the divine air of Italy, and admire the masterpieces there. Tell the Duke de Morlay that no day passes without my thoughts flying to him. Only one thing worries me. I can confide it to you, Genevieve, you who are so perfectly happy. Why does the theatre draw me so that I am willing to sacrifice for it even those I love? I see the Countess Styvens every day. She seems a light ready to flicker out. Sometimes she looks at me as if she saw me far, very far away, and murmurs, 'Poor little thing, it is not her fault!' Then I shiver. What is not my fault? Albert's death. Dear Albert, who frightened me so much sometimes, that I felt my teeth chattering! Do you know how he died? Nobody seems to know! Genevieve dear, the pearl collar strangles me sometimes. I promised not to take it off, but I must take it off to play 'Camille' in Musset's play. Mustn't I? She cannot wear pearls at the convent? When I promised that, I did not expect ever to appear on the stage any more; but now! Besides, when I am on the stage I am not myself at all. Esperance stays behind in the dressing-room and 'Camille' comes forth. Then the collar? Ask the Duke, without telling him that I asked you, what I should do. This collar seems to me such a heavy chain, so heavy and sometimes so cold. I must stop this letter, for you see the confusion is coming back again. I am a little frightened! I must be trembling, does it not show in my writing? It is little Mademoiselle's pen. I embrace you with all the strength of my joy in your happiness.—Esperance."

The writing changed.

"I must make Esperance stop. She has been wandering again as she writes. Her pulse is very quick. I must tell her father. Au revoir, dear girl, and come back soon; for you are the brightness and peace she longs for. My regards to your husband.—Eleanore Frahender."

This letter made Maurice, his wife and the Duke very anxious.

"She must in some way be prevented from seeing the Countess Styvens," said Genevieve, "but how are we to manage that?"

They decided to shorten their stay in Italy by five days.

Esperance was to appear on the twentieth of December, about fifteen days after her letter reached them. All the elegant world of Paris, artistic, sensation-hunting, was waiting with delight for the appearance of the little heroine, the idol of the public. Count Styvens's death in a duel, slain by a well-known admirer of Esperance, had caused a great deal of ink to be spilled. But the devotion of the Countess towards the girl who would have been her daughter, the denials of the witnesses to the most intimate friends, asking if ... really ... between ourselves ... was not there something? ... deceived the most suspicious. All these "fors" and "againsts" had kindled the curiosity of the public, and the general sympathy was strongly in favour of the unconscious cause of the great modern mystery. The notice, announcing the first appearance of Esperance Darbois in On ne badine pas avec l'amour drew an enormous crowd. The house was entirely sold out several days in advance. Many who could not get admission waited outside the theatre to get news during the intervals. The corridors were full of French and foreign reporters.

Behind the scenes Esperance stood looking at herself in the mirror. It was almost time for the curtain to go up. Dressed in the convent robe, the strings of pearls was still about her neck. Should she unclasp it, should she not? If they went with her on the stage would she not be betraying her art; would they not clutch and strangle her, strangle "Camille," until Esperance had to come back in her place? And if she cast it aside, her loyalty, her promise? Must she wear fetters to keep faith? Oh, Albert, Albert! Oh, these dark shadows, these groping dark confusions where she so often strayed. Where was rest? Or peace? And joy, the joy of the theatre, would that, too, be taken away? She swayed a little and longed with all her strength for a force not her own to enter in. She was too weak to fight against her own Destiny.

She found it. A hint of it came first in the scent of gardenia flowers, sweet and strong and penetrating, compelling and agreeable to the senses. Then the Duke's strong arms were about her, and she sank gladly back as if she were falling into a flood of light.

But his swift words brought her back.

"Esperance, my darling, we have no time to lose. Come with me. The Countess Styvens is dying. She would not send for you, she would not spoil your triumph. But she can absolve you. She can loose the pearls. You can remember the other request Albert made you then, his dying wish, my living one. Come with me, be her daughter to the last, and then, my love, to Italy, where we will find you health and strength, and give you new life for your future as my wife."



THE END