I was gloomily meditating upon the tangle of events, when the door of
the salon opened, and Rosa entered. She walked stiffly to a chair,
and, sitting down opposite to me, looked into my face with hard,
glittering eyes. For a few moments she did not speak, and I could not
break the silence. Then I saw the tears slowly welling up, and I was
glad for that. She was intensely moved, and less agonizing experiences
than she had gone through might easily have led to brain fever in a
woman of her highly emotional temperament.
"Why don't you leave me, Mr. Foster?" she cried passionately, and
there were sobs in her voice. "Why don't you leave me, and never see
me again?"
"Leave you?" I said softly. "Why?"
"Because I am cursed. Throughout my life I have been cursed; and the
curse clings, and it falls on those who come near me."
She gave way to hysterical tears; her head bent till it was almost on
her knees. I went to her, and gently raised it, and put a cushion at
the back of the chair. She grew calmer.
"If you are cursed, I will be cursed," I said, gazing straight at her,
and then I sat down again.
The sobbing gradually ceased. She dried her eyes.
"He is dead," she said shortly.
I made no response; I had none to make.
"You do not say anything," she murmured.
"I am sorry. Sir Cyril was the right sort."
"He was my father," she said.
"Your father!" I repeated. No revelation could have more profoundly
astonished me.
"Yes," she firmly repeated.
We both paused.
"I thought you had lost both parents," I said at length, rather
lamely.
"Till lately I thought so too. Listen. I will tell you the tale of all
my life. Not until to-night have I been able to put it together, and
fill in the blanks."
And this is what she told me: "My father was travelling through Europe. He had money, and of course
he met with adventures. One of his adventures was my mother. She lived
among the vines near Avignon, in Southern France; her uncle was a
small grape-grower. She belonged absolutely to the people, but she was
extremely beautiful. I'm not exaggerating; she was. She was one of
those women that believe everything, and my father fell in love with
her. He married her properly at Avignon. They travelled together
through France and Italy, and then to Belgium. Then, in something less
than a year, I was born. She gave herself up to me entirely. She was
not clever; she had no social talents and no ambitions. No, she
certainly had not much brain; but to balance that she had a heart--so
large that it completely enveloped my father and me.