“Father? . . .  You say father?”

“Yes.  But a moment gone you spoke of Margot Bourdaloue.”

“What is that to you?” cried the marquis, raising himself on an elbow, though the effort cost him pain.

“She was my mother,” softly.

The marquis fell back among his pillows.  The gnawing of a mouse behind the wall could be heard distinctly.  Brother Jacques was conscious of the sound.

“My mother,” he repeated.

“You lie, Jesuit!”

“Not at this hour, my father.”

“Son of Margot Bourdaloue, you! . . .  Ah!” The marquis rose again, leaning on both arms.  “Have you come to mock my death-bed?”

“Truth is not mockery.”

“Away, lying Jesuit!”

The priest stooped.  “Look well into my face, Monsieur; look well.  Is there not something there to awaken your memory?” Brother Jacques brought his face within a span of the marquis’s.  “Look!”

“The eyes, the eyes! . . .  Margot, a son? . . .  What do you want?” The marquis moistened his lips.

“To make your last hour something like the many I have lived.  Where is the woman you wronged and cast aside, my mother?”

The marquis’s arms gave way.

“Ah, but I have waited for this hour!” said Brother Jacques.  All the years of suffering returned and spread their venom through his veins.  “I have starved.  I have begged.  I have been beaten.  I have slept in fields and have been bitten by dogs.  I have seen you feasting at your table while I hungered outside.  I have watched your coach as it rolled through the chateau gates.  One day your postilion struck me with his whip because I did not get out of the way soon enough.  I have crept into sheds and shared the straw with beasts which had more pity than you.  I thought of you, Monsieur le Marquis, you in your chateau with plenty to eat and drink, and a fire toasting your noble shins.  Have I not thought of you?”

“I am an old man,” said the marquis, bewildered.  This priest must be a nightmare, another of those phantoms which were crowding around his bed.

“How I longed for riches, luxury, content!  For had I not your blood in my veins and were not my desires natural?  I became a priest because I could starve no longer without dying.  I have seen your true son in the forests, have called him brother, though he did not understand.  You cursed him and made him an outcast, wilfully.  I was starving as a lad of two.  My mother, Margot Bourdaloue, went out in search of bread.  I followed, but became lost.  I never saw my mother again; I can not even remember how she looked.  I can only recall the starved eyes.  And you cursed your acknowledged son and applied to him the epithet which I have borne these twenty years.  Unnatural father!”

“Unnatural son,” murmured the marquis.

“I have suffered!” Brother Jacques flung his arms above his head as if to hurl the trembling curse.  “No; I shall not curse you.  You do not believe in God.  Heaven and hell have no meaning.”