that of the sender, but that of the telegraph-clerk. She will be deceived and think that her mother has really sent it.' ... How unspeakably cruel and wicked! No, a letter could not be forged, and that is why there is no letter. Let them wait until my husband can get at them. Mon petit Gingembre! And it is his birthday in a month.... What shall I get for him? I cannot make up my mind. One cannot get just what one wants out here, and if one sends the money for something to be bought at Home, it is not the same thing—it does not seem to the child as though his parents sent it at all. How lucky I am to have mother to leave him to. She simply worships him, and he couldn't have a happier time, nor better treatment, if I were there myself. No—that's just it—the happier a child is the less it needs you, and you wouldn't have it unhappy so that it did want you. How the darling will..." and then again rose the awful wailing cry as consciousness of the terrible truth, the cruel loss, the horrible fate, and the sensation of utter impotence of the bereaved, surged over the wearied, failing brain. She must cry or die.
The Major sat beside her and gently patted her, in his dull yearning to help, to relieve the dreadful agony, to do something.
A gust of rebellious rage shook him, and he longed to fight and to kill. Why was he smitten thus, and why was there no tangible opponent at whom he could rush, and whom he could hew and hack and slay? He rose to his feet, with clenched fists uplifted, and purpling face.
"Be calm," he said, and took a hold upon himself.
Useless to attempt to fight Fate or the Devil or whatever it was that struck you from behind like this, stabbed you in the back, turned life to dust and ashes.... He must grin and bear it like a man. Like a man—and what of the woman?
"He's happy now, petit, our petit Gingembre," said the poor wretch.
"He's just a jolly little angel, having a fête-day of a time. He's not weeping and unhappy. Not he, peaudezébie!"
"Burning!" screamed the woman. "My baby is burning! My petit Gingembre is burning, and no one will help him.... My baby is burning and Heaven looks on! Oh, mother!—Annette!—Marie!—Grégoire!—rush up to the bedroom! ... Quick—he is burning! The curtain is on fire. The blind has caught.... The dressing-table is alight.... The blind has fallen on the bed. His pillow is smouldering. He is suffocating. The bed is on fire..." and scream followed heartrending scream. The stricken husband seized the woman's hands and kissed them.
"No, petit, he never woke. He never felt anything. He just passed away to le bon Dieu in his sleep, without pain or fright, or anything. He just died in his sleep. There is no pain at all about that sort of suffocation, you know," he said.
"Oh, if I could but think so!" moaned the woman. "If I could only for a moment think so! ... Burning to death and screaming for mother.... Edouard! Shoot me—shoot me! Or let me..."
"See, Beloved of my Soul," urged her husband, gently shaking her. "I do solemnly swear that I know he was not hurt in the least. He never woke. I happen to know it. I am not saying it to comfort you. I know it."
"How could you know, Edouard? ... Oh, my little baby, my little son! Oh, wake me from this awful cauchemar, Edouard. Say I am dreaming and am going to wake."
"The little chap's gone, darling, but he went easy, and he's well out of this cursed world, anyhow. He'll never have suffering and unhappiness... And he had such a happy little life." ...
Then, for the first time in his career, the Major waxed eloquent, and, for the first time in his life, lied fluently and artistically. "I wonder if you'll believe me if I tell you how I know he wasn't hurt," he continued. "It's the truth, you know. I wouldn't lie to you, would I?"
"No, you wouldn't deceive me, and you haven't the wit if you would," replied his wife.
"No, dearest, that's just it. I wouldn't and couldn't, as you say. Well, look here, last night the little chap appeared to me. Le petit Gingembre himself! Faith of a gentleman, he did.... I may have been asleep, but he appeared to me as plain as you are now.... As pretty, I mean," he corrected with a heavy, anxious laugh and pat, peering into the drawn and disfigured face to see if his words reached the distraught mind, "and he said, 'Father, I want to speak to mother, and she cannot hear because she cries out and screams and sobs. It makes nae so wretched that I cannot bear it.'"
The man moistened parched lips with a leathery tongue.
"And he said, 'Tell her I was not hurt a little bit—not even touched by the flames. I just slept on, and knew nothing.... And I couldn't be happy, even in Heaven, while she grieves so.'"
The woman turned to him.
"Edouard, you are lying to me—and I am grateful to you. It is as terrible for you as for me," and she beat her forehead with clenched fists.
"Eugénie!" cried her husband, "Do you call me a liar! Me? Did I not give you my word of honour?"
"Aren't you lying, Edouard? Aren't you? ... Don't deceive me, Edouard André Gallais!" and she seized his wrist in a grip that hurt him.
"I take my solemn oath I am not lying," lied the Major. "Heaven smite me if I am. I swear I am speaking the absolute truth. Nom de nom de Dieu! Would I lie to you?"
He must convince her while she had the sanity to understand him.... "I believe you, Edouard. You are not deceiving me. Oh, thank God! I humbly thank the good merciful Father. And it was—it was—a real and actual communication, Edouard—and vouchsafed to you, the scoffer at spirit communication."
"Yes, but that's not all, my Eugénie. The little chap said, 'I cannot come to mother while she cries out and moans. Tell her to talk with me by "planchette," you joining with her.' He did," lied the Major.
"Oh! Oh! Edouard! Quick! Where is it? ... Oh, my baby!" cried Madame Gallais, rising and rushing to a cabinet from which she produced a heart-shaped ebony board some ten inches long and six broad, having at the wide end two legs, an inch or so in length terminating in two swivelled ivory wheels, and, at the other end, a pencil of the same length as the legs.
Seating herself at her writing-table, she placed the instrument on a large sheet of paper, while her husband brought a chair to her side.
Both placed their hands lightly on the broad part of the board and awaited results.
The pencil did not stir.
Minute after minute passed.
The Adjudant-Major was a cunning man of war, and he was using all his cunning now.
The woman uttered a faint moan as the tenth minute ebbed away.
"Patience, Sweetheart," said he. "It's worth a fair trial and a little patience, isn't it?"
"Patience!" was the scornful reply. "I'll sit here till I die—or I'll hear from my boy.... You didn't lie to me, Edouard?"
The pencil stirred—stirred, moved, and stopped.
The woman groaned.
The pencil stirred again. Then it moved—moved and wrote rapidly, improving in pace and execution as the Major gained practice in pushing it without giving the slightest impression of using "undue influence."
His wife firmly and fanatically believed that the spirit of her child was actually
