And with a wave of the hand he began anew to plunge her into the mesmeric sleep.
She uttered a sigh and fell off into repose.
"Am I to put forth all my will power or will you answer voluntarily?" asked Gilbert when she was under control.
"Will you tell the boy again that I am not his mother?"
"Then you are his mother as I am his father, for it is thus I love him. Loving him, you shall see him again. When did you part from the boy?"
"About half an hour ago, when Count Charny called. I had pushed him into this room."
"That I was no more his mother: because I had told him that you were a villain."
"Look into the poor boy's heart and see what harm you wrought."
"Oh, God forgive me," said Andrea: "forgive me, my son."
"Did Count Charny suspect the boy was here?"
"Because he never stays long with me. Oh, wretch that I am," she interrupted herself, "he was returning to me after refusing that mission--because he loves me--he loves me!"
Gilbert began to see more clearly into this drama which his eye was first to penetrate.
"I see your intention is good: you wish to make up to me for the grief you have caused: but I refuse the boon coming from you. I hate you and wish to continue in my hatred."
"Poor mortality," muttered the philosopher, "have you had so much happiness that you can dally with a certain amount offered you? so you love him?"
"Yes. Since first I saw him, as the Queen and I sat with him in a hackney-carriage in which we returned from Paris to Versailles one night."
"You know what love is, Andrea," queried Gilbert, mournfully.
"I know that love has been given as a standard by which we can measure how much sadness we can endure," replied she.
"It is well: you are a true woman and a true mother: a rough diamond, you were shaped by the stern lapidary known as Grief. Return to Sebastian."
"Yes, I see him leaving the house with clenched hands and knit brow. He wanders up the street--he goes up to a woman and asks her for St. Honore Street----"
"My street: he was seeking for my house. Poor child! he will be there awaiting me."
"Hold! he has gone astray--he is in New St. Roch Street. Oh, he does not see that vehicle coming down Sourdiere Street, but I see the horses--Ah!"
She drew herself up with an awful scream, maternal anguish depicted on her visage, down which rolled tears and perspiration.