He was nineteen then, and when he was twenty-one my father had
the unpleasant task of carrying out Lady Glencaryll's dying wishes. He
wrote to Lord Glencaryll asking him to come to Paris on business
connected with his late wife, and, during the course of a very painful
interview, put the whole facts before him. With the letter that the
poor girl had written to her husband, with the wedding-ring and the
locket, together with the sketch that my father had made of her, the
proofs of the genuineness of the whole affair were conclusive.
Glencaryll broke down completely. He admitted that his wife had every
justification for leaving him, he spared himself nothing. He referred
quite frankly to the curse of which he had been the slave and which had
made him irresponsible for his actions when he was under its influence.
He had never known himself what had happened that terrible night, but
the tragedy of his wife's disappearance had cured him. He had made
every effort to find her and it was many years before he gave up all
hope. He mourned her bitterly, and worshipped her memory. It was
impossible not to pity him, for he had expiated his fault with agony
that few men can have experienced. The thought that he had a son and
that son her child almost overwhelmed him. He had ardently desired an
heir, and, thinking himself childless, the fact that his title and his
old name, of which he was very proud, would die with him had been a
great grief.
His happiness in the knowledge of Ahmed's existence was
pathetic, he was consumed with impatience for his son's arrival.
Nothing had been said to Ahmed in case Lord Glencaryll should prove
difficult to convince and thereby complicate matters, but his ready
acceptance of the affair and his eagerness to see his son made further
delay unnecessary, and my father sent for Ahmed. The old Sheik let him
go in ignorance of what was coming. He had always dreaded the time when
his adopted son would have to be told of his real parentage, fearful of
losing him, jealous of sharing his affection and resenting anybody's
claim to him over his own. And so, with the only instance he ever gave
of want of moral courage, he sent Ahmed to Paris with no explanation,
and left to my father the task of breaking to him the news. I shall
never forget that day. It had been arranged that Ahmed should be told
first and that afterwards father and son should meet. Ahmed arrived in
the morning in time for dejeuner, and afterwards we went to my
father's study, and there he told him the whole story as gently and as
carefully as he could. Ahmed was standing by the window. He never said
a word the whole time my father was speaking, and when he finished he
stood quite still for a few moments, his face almost grey under the
deep tan, his eyes fixed passionately on my father's--and then his
fiendish temper broke out suddenly. It was a terrible scene. He cursed
his father in a steady stream of mingled Arabic and French blasphemy
that made one's blood run cold. He cursed all English people
impartially. He cursed my father because he had dared to send him to
England.