The Three Eyes Part 33

She was at last able to breathe and hold her head high and look straight before her and accept her share of happiness and love. She whispered:

"Is it possible? Noel Dorgeroux's daughter? Is it possible?"

"It is possible," I said, "and it is certain. After his rightful struggle with Velmot and after the care which you bestowed upon him once you had saved him, Ma.s.signac repented. Thinking of the day of his death, he tried to atone for a part of his crimes and wrote you that letter . . . which evidently possesses no legal value, but which you and I will accept as the truth. You are the daughter of Noel Dorgeroux, Berangere, of the man whom you always loved as a father . . . and who wanted us to be married. Will you dream of disobeying his wishes, Berangere? Do you not think that it is our duty to join forces and together to complete his enterprise? You know the indispensable formula. By publishing it, we shall make Noel Dorgeroux's wonderful life-work endure for ever. Do you consent, Berangere?"

She did not reply at once; and, when I again tried to convince her, I saw that she was listening with an absent expression, in which I was surprised to find a certain anxiety:

"What is it, darling? You accept, do you not?"

"Yes, yes," she said, "but, before everything I must try to jog my memory. Only think! How careless of me not to have written the formula down! Certainly, I know it by heart. But, all the same . . ."

She thought for a long time, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her forehead and moving her lips. Suddenly she said:

"A paper and pencil . . . quickly. . . ."

I handed her a writing-block. Swiftly, with a trembling hand, she jotted down a few figures. Then she stopped and looked at me with eyes full of anguish.

I understood the effort which she had made and, to calm her, said:

"Don't rack your brains now . . . it'll come later. . . . What you need to-day is rest. Go to sleep, my darling."

"I must find it . . . at all costs. . . . I must. . . ."

"You'll find it some other time. You are tired now and excited. Rest yourself."

She did as I said and ended by falling asleep. But an hour after, she woke up, took the sheet of paper again and, in a moment or two, stammered:

"This is dreadful! My brain refuses to work! Oh, but it hurts, it hurts! . . ."

The night was spent in these vain attempts. Her fever increased. Next day she was delirious and kept on muttering letters and figures which were never the same.

For a week, her life was despaired of. She suffered horribly with her head and wore herself out scribbling lines on her bed clothes.

When she became convalescent and had recovered her consciousness, we avoided the subject and did not refer to it for some time. But I felt that she never ceased to think of it and that she continued to seek the formula. At last, one day, she said with tears in her eyes:

"I have given up all hopes, dear. I repeated that formula a hundred times after I had learnt it; and I felt sure of my memory. But not a single recollection of it remains. It must have been when Velmot was clutching my throat. Everything grew dark, suddenly. I know now that I shall never remember."

She never did remember. The exhibitions at the Yard were not resumed.

The miraculous visions did not reappear.

And yet what investigations were pursued! How many companies have been promoted which attempted to exploit the lost secret! But all in vain: the screen remained lifeless and empty, like a blind man's eyes.

To Berangere and me it would have meant a sorrow incessantly renewed, if love had not brought us peace and consolation in all things. The authorities, who showed themselves fairly easy-going, I think, in this case, never found any traces of the woman who bore the name of Ma.s.signac. I was dispatched on a mission to the Far East. I sent out for her; and we were married without attracting attention.

We often speak of Noel Dorgeroux's great secret; and if Berangere's lovely eyes become clouded with sadness:

"Certainly," I say, "the lost secret was a wonderful thing. There was never anything more thrilling than the Meudon pictures; and those which we had a right to expect might have opened up horizons which we are not able to conceive. But are you quite sure that we ought to regret them? Does a knowledge of the past and the future spell happiness for mankind? Is it not rather an essential law of our equilibrium that we should be obliged to live within the narrow confines of the present and to see before or behind us no more than lights which are still just glimmering and lights which are being faintly kindled? Our knowledge is adjusted to our strength; and it is not good to learn and to decipher too quickly truths to which we have not had time to adapt our existence and riddles which we do not yet deserve to know."

Benjamin Prevotelle made no attempt to conceal his disappointment. I keep up a regular correspondence with him. In every letter that I receive from this great scientist I antic.i.p.ate his anxious question:

"Does she remember? May we hope?"

Alas, my answers leave him no illusions:

"Berangere remembers nothing. You must not hope."

He consoles himself by waging a fierce contest with those who still deny any value to his theory; and it must be confessed that, now that the screen has been destroyed and it has become impossible to support that theory by proofs which are in any way material, the number of his adversaries has increased and that they propound objections which Benjamin Prevotelle must find it extremely difficult to refute. But he has every sincere and unprejudiced person on his side.

He likewise has the great public. We all know, of our reasoned conviction, and we all believe, out of our impulse of ardent faith, that, though we now receive no communications from our brothers in Venus, they, those beings with the Three Eyes, are still interesting themselves in us with the same fervour, the same watchfulness, the same impa.s.sioned curiosity. Looking down upon us, they follow our every action, they observe us, study us and pity us, they count our misfortunes and our wounds and perhaps also they envy us, when they witness our joys and when, in some secret place, they surprise a man and a maid, with love-laden eyes, whose lips unite in a kiss.

THE END