The Sacrificial Altar

“Now, my son, what is it? You may or may not have heard of the terrible tragedy that has devastated my home, but that can wait—”

“Oh no, Monsieur, it is not to wait! It is of that I have come to speak.”

“But, of course, old Seraphine would have told you the moment you would listen. It is like you to come at once, although God knows I should have been grateful for your sympathy during that terrible time—”

“Oh, Monsieur! I cannot stand it!” Louis sprang to his feet and strode about the room. “It is something more awful still that I have come to tell you. How am I to do it? You, who have always been so kind! My only friend! My God, what a return! But of that I never thought. I was obsessed. It was an inhibition.”

“Dear Louis! Come to the point. Are you quoting from your new book—”

“M. Cesar, you do not know what you are dodging! I will try to put my confession in a few words. It was I—I—Louis Bac, who—who—killed Mademoiselle Berthe. There! It is said!”

“My poor boy!” M. Dupont rose and poured out another whiskey-and-soda. “Drink this and I will put you to bed in a room close by—drunk, hein! for the first time in your life.”

But Louis shook his head. Then he turned upon his friend eyes so beseeching and so abject that the ready tears rose to the eyes of the elderly Frenchman.

“When did Seraphine tell you this dreadful thing?”

“An hour or two ago.”

“Just after you had awakened from your long sleep?”

Louis nodded.

“No wonder your insatiable faculty immediately began on another! God knows it is not a subject for jest, but I cannot lose you, too. You will go to bed now—”

“Oh, Monsieur, you must believe me! I tell you I smothered Mademoiselle Berthe with a pillow—”

“Tut! tut! That was all in the papers. I can see old Seraphine’s ghoulish delight in recreating that grisly scene. And she told you, of course, that the drawers were open, the contents strewn about—”

“No; or if she did I have forgotten. God! how the moonlight streamed in!”

He flung off M. Cesar’s hand, and almost ran about the room while his uneasy host felt of his biceps.