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When I visited the villa last summer the oeuvre had eight thousand marraines, and no doubt the number has doubled to-day. Fifteen hundred of these were American, marshalled by Madame Berard's representative in New York, Mr. R.W. Neeser. Some of these fairy godmothers had ten filleuls. Packages were dispatched to the Front every week. Women that could not afford presents wrote regularly.
Out of this initial and purely personal devotion grew the great oeuvre, Mon Soldat, which has met with such a warm response in this country. Madame Berard's headquarters are in a villa in the Parc Monceau.
After lunch in the famous hotel ordinarily one of the gayest in France at that time of the year, we first visited the rest hospital of Miss Morgan, Miss Marbury and Miss de Wolfe, and then drove out into the country to Madame Berard's historical estate.
On Ernesto Villa Rocca's handsome face is the pallor of death. Lagunitas and its millions are his by right of power and cunning. Marie Berard's avenger is thousands of miles away from her grave, and his cunning plan already woven to ensnare the Italian when off his guard. Yet Hardin's blood boils to feel that "the secret for a price" is buried in Marie Berard's grave.
Marie Berard's case is one of the reigning sensations. Her lips are now sealed in death. The baffled police only see in the visit to the "bal de minuit," a bourgeois intrigue of ordinary character. Jules dares not tell all. He fears the stern French law. Tossing on his bed of pain, his only course is to secretly visit Leroyne & Co.
Before you go to Livingston's, just stop at Pieri Berard's. My lad, the disinterested kindness of Monsieur Vauquelin is one of the sorrows of my life. I cannot make him accept any return. Happily, I found out from Chiffreville that he wished for the Dresden Madonna, engraved by a man named Muller.
"Does the young lady not go to the convent?" says the astonished servant, a trifle maliciously. "Certainly not," coldly says Hortense. "My own child shall be the heiress of that fortune. She is already at the Sacred Heart." Marie Berard's keen eye sees the plot. An exchange of children. The nameless child shall be dowered with millions. Her own future is assured.
Marie Berard's selection has been excellent. "Louise Moreau" is the new name of the changeling heiress, now daily becoming more contented in her new home. Aristide Dauvray has a happy household. A master decorative workman, only lacking a touch of genius to be a sculptor, his pride is in his artistic handiwork. His happiness in his good wife Josephine. His heart centres in his talented boy.
And I have always inclined to the more serious side of life. Even when we were together in Brussels " "You? Serious? At Madam Bérard's? I like that. Who was it that kicked the plaster off the dormitory wall higher than her head? Who put pepper in Signor Antonio's snuff box?" Spencer saw the outer waves of a flush on Helen's cheeks.
When a cab is halted, the horses shying at a prostrate body, knots of street loungers gather at the cries of the discoverers of Marie Berard's body. The "sergents de ville" raise the woman. Her blood stains the sidewalk, in the shadow of the Church of Christ. Twinkling lights flicker on her face. A priest passing by, walks by the stretcher.
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