But for the last two or three days, especially that morning, she had been impressed with a sort of eagerness which Mr. Durrien displayed in all his manner, as well as the happy air with which he regarded her, insisting in hearing over and over again from her lips, all the details of the disaster of the “Cynthia,” which he had avoided speaking of for a long time.  As she mused over his strange behavior a sort of revelation came to her.  She felt sure that her father must have received some favorable intelligence which had revived the hope of finding her child.  But without the least idea that he had already done so, she determined not to retire that night until she had questioned him closely.

Mme. Durrien had never definitely renounced the idea that her son was living.  She had never seen him dead before her eyes, and she clung mother-like to the hope that he was not altogether lost to her.  She said that the proofs were insufficient, and she nourished the possibility of his sudden return.  She might be said to pass her days waiting for him.  Thousands of women, mothers of soldiers and sailors, pass their lives under this touching delusion.  Mrs. Durrien had a greater right than they had to preserve her faith in his existence.  In truth the tragical scene enacted twenty-two years ago was always before her eyes.  She beheld the “Cynthia” filling with water and ready to sink.  She saw herself tying her infant to a large buoy while the passengers and sailors were rushing for the boats.  They left her behind, she saw herself imploring, beseeching that they would at least take her baby.  A man took her precious burden, and threw it into one of the boats, a heavy sea dashed over it, and to her horror she saw the buoy floating away on the crest of the waves.  She gave a dispairing cry and tried to jump after him, then came unconsciousness.  When she awoke she was a prey to despair, to fever, to delirium.  To this succeeded increasing grief.  Yes, the poor woman recalled all this.  Her whole being had in fact received a shock from which she had never recovered.  It was now nearly a quarter of a century since this had happened, and Mrs. Durrien still wept for her son as on the first day.  Her maternal heart so full of grief was slowly consuming her life.  She sometimes pictured to herself her son passing through the successive phases of infancy, youth, and manhood.  From year to year she represented to herself how he would have looked, how he was looking, for she obstinately clung to her belief of the possibility of his return.

This vain hope nothing had as yet had the power to shake—­neither travels, nor useless researches, nor the passage of time.

This is why this evening she awaited her father with the firm resolution of knowing all that he had to tell.

Mr. Darrien entered.  He was followed by a young gentleman, whom he presented to her in the following words: 

“My daughter, this is Mr. Erik Hersebom, of whom I have often spoken to you, and who has just arrived at Paris.  The Geographical Society wish to bestow upon him a grand medal, and he has done me the honor to accept our hospitality.”