PART III

I

THE COMPANION IN ARMS

WHEN Margaret Roquevillard came into her father’s study, as she did

each day, to light the lamp and draw the curtains, and take up if she

could some special share of his burdens for him, she found him gazing

out of the window, watching the rapidly declining daylight.

“Is that you, Margaret?” he said. “There’s no light any more for

working.”

He made excuses for his reverie as if it were a weakness in him, but

Margaret knew the cause of this preoccupation, though he would not

confess it.

“Those gentlemen have not come yet?” she asked.

“I expect them any moment now,” he said. “They were to see Maurice in

prison this afternoon.”

“Who is going to make the main argument? Will it be Mr. Hamel?”

“No. Mr. Hamel is the president of the benchers in our order. Maurice

being a member of the bar, I begged the president to conduct his case.

It’s a tradition of the bar. Mr. Hamel will give us the prestige

of his half a century of professional honour, but he thinks he is too

old, and too much of a specialist in questions of civil law, to make

the argument. He wants Battard to do that. Battard has the highest

reputation of any member of our bar in jury trials.”

The young woman made a little face at the mention of Mr. Battard’s name.

“I’ve heard him, father. You speak much better than he does.”

But the old lawyer replied almost crossly: “I don’t speak well, little

girl. I simply say what I have to say.”

“Why don’t you defend him yourself, father?”

“That wouldn’t do at all. Don’t you see it wouldn’t, Margaret?”

She came to him, and, putting a hand on his shoulder, leant her head

against his breast.

“Father, have you forgiven Maurice?”

“He hasn’t asked me.”

“That’s because he feels so badly.”

“Yes, no doubt. Fate can give us cruel blows. He at least has been

responsible for his own ill-luck.”

“Remember mamma.”

He bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

“Don’t ask me to be weak, Margaret. I have been to see him twice at

the gaol. I found him walled up in his pride. He gave me no sign

of regret for what he’d done, and all the woe he’s caused us. I

am waiting only for one word from him to be ready to forgive him,

yet we exchanged only a few insignificant remarks.”

“When I go to see him he cries about mother with me. He doesn’t dare

with you.”

“It’s his place to speak first. I shall wait.”

Margaret could not see, with her head bent, the sweetly sad look that

spread over his old face, and softened the severity of his words. She

repeated:

“He feels very badly. He’s unhappy.”

“And aren’t we?” asked Mr. Roquevillard.

He raised the girl’s head gently.

“What have you been doing this afternoon, Margaret?” he asked in his

turn, changing the subject.

“I took little Julian for a walk. Then I wrote a long letter to Hubert.”

“Ah, so did I.”

The fate of Hubert was still a source of some anxiety to them. The last

letter from the Soudan had brought news that the young officer was

down with fever, ill in an isolated cabin, without a doctor. He made

light himself of this unlucky piece of work, not taking it seriously,

but a certain note of detachment in his letter, contrasted with a more

than ordinarily affectionate way of putting his good-byes, struck both

father and sister, and deeply affected them. They were silent, their

hearts shaken. Margaret lighted the lamp, to chase away the darkness

that was so full of evil omens. As she drew the curtains together some

one knocked at the door.

“It’s they,” said Mr. Roquevillard.

And the girl had just time to disappear through the door

that led into the apartment as her father went forward to

receive his visitors. Mr. Hamel came in first, followed by Mr. Battard.

The president of the benchers enjoyed a respect and esteem at the

bar in Chambéry which were the natural deserts of great age, great

knowledge of the law and a dignified private life. He was a man

of seventy-five, so thin that he rattled round in his threadbare

frock-coat, a garment which he used to declare obstinately would last

as long as he did. In winter time he draped himself in an antiquated

overcoat, never bothering to put his arms through the sleeves. Above

his shaven face a crown of white hair stood out in disorder, and his

colourless cheeks were almost transparently thin. His tall figure was

bent like those too slender poplars that are twisted by the wind, but

his character was upright and unbroken. Nothing could ever have swerved

him from the lines of conduct which the traditions of his family, in

the best sense of the word, and his firm convictions had laid down

for him at an early age. Cold and distant in bearing, a man of few

words, he showed as much rigidity in his principles as proud courtesy

in the relations of his daily life, displaying his high-mindedness as

much in the ordinary circumstances as in the more important matters of

existence. Good fortune and bad he had met with an even temper. Yet he

had known more of bad fortune than of good in his later years, at the

end of his life’s journey, when a man deserves repose. The unfortunate

speculations of a son had ruined him, but he had set himself again

quite simply to the task of gaining his daily bread. Rarely appearing in

court, he was the counsellor most sought for in delicate matters by

those who expected what was equitable and right. One seldom saw him

outside of his office, a poor and shabby room, where one went with

special cases for arbitrage and settlement as to a sovereign judge.

When he left his office it was always in the evening, to walk rapidly

to church, his air chilly and hurried, indifferent to the world about

him, listening only to the voice of God, whose summons he waited for

with patience and resignation.

One of those ancient friendships, by which people sharing the same

kind of life and trials are united as strongly as by the ties of

blood, united the old lawyer and Mr. Roquevillard, despite the great

disparity in their ages. He had watched over the professional début

of Mr. Roquevillard, who in turn had looked out for him in the wreck

that later overwhelmed his material fortunes, holding out against his

creditors, obtaining delays, organising sales and payments to the best

advantage. When the younger man was laid low in his turn the elder came

out of his retreat, conscious though he was of the chill and feebleness

of his years.

Mr. Battard, by his reputation, was a natural second. This young

man--for thus the old man called him in spite of his forty-five

years--always caused him some anxiety, by reason of a certain

cynicism in his conversation, and a tendency to take up cases for

the fees he could get from them; but at the bar he was as formidable

as a host, by turns ironical and flowery, mocking and eloquent. He

would modulate his voice like a tenor, posturing like a favourite

actor, and took at once the chief rôle, showing off his fine beard,

his regular features, his finely polished bald head as if they

were insignia of rank, stirring things up, flinging himself about,

dominating the whole stage, and finally, with the cleverness of a

conjurer, sweeping up jury and opposing counsel at once in the folds

of his robe, which he flourished round him like a battle standard.

This incontestable superiority in the court-room must be taken

account of, and Mr. Hamel, a humble follower of truth, who detested

all the trappings of eloquence and declamation, stilled his personal

preferences to make the acquittal of his friend’s son more sure.

Even though Mr. Roquevillard had always kept Mr. Battard at a distance,

and in the court-room would pitilessly turn inside out all this

cleverness and seductiveness, by simple tactics that consisted in going

straight to the point of things with the swiftness of a charge of

cavalry, such was the force of professional loyalty that Mr. Battard

had eagerly accepted the defence of Maurice, and had already shown

himself active and resolute in his plans for it.

After they had shaken hands the president summed up the situation in a

few words:

“You see, my dear friend, that I have begged our learned

brother Battard to come to our assistance. I am old,

and I don’t know how to move people. He will make the

argument and I shall assist him. We have studied the brief together and

seen your son in prison. One difficulty presents itself.”

“What is that?” asked the anxious father.

“Battard can explain it to you better than I.”

This latter gentleman stirred his fine head importantly, but contented

himself with a short and simple explanation, sensible enough to know

that fine effects were useless outside the court-room.

“Yes, I’ve studied the brief. The material fact of abuse of confidence

is shown by the notary’s declaration, and by the report of the

commissioner of police. I have found no proofs against your son, but

grave presumptions. He was aware of the deposit of the money, he was

the last of them all to leave the office, and had got possession of

the keys. He might have got the secret of the combination from the

memorandum book, in which the head clerk had written it; he had not

much in the way of personal resources, and he was bent on eloping with

his chief’s wife. With this they have cooked up a regular accusation.

Add his departure to a foreign country, his silence, his tardy return.

The deposition of the said Philippeaux especially is full of malice.

This boy must have been jealous of his more favoured colleague. I

suspect him of an unfortunate passion for Mrs. Frasne. A dangerous

woman, that. A little thin, but fine eyes. Not my type at all.”

A coarse strain in his make-up prevented him from realising

that this reflection was misplaced, that the presence of

the father of the accused should have made him more reserved in his

remarks. He began again after a pause:

“It’s not enough to protest that he is innocent. The theft being

admitted, the jury will look for a culprit. We must point one out

to them. The offensive, I have often noticed, is more certain in

results than the defensive. It distracts the jury’s mind, and fixes it

somewhere else. I have tried it often with success. Now, in this kind

of case, the true culprit is plainly designated.”

He spread out a code on the table, and turned over the leaves. His two

hearers listened to him without interruption.

“Observe that Mrs. Frasne runs no risk. She is covered by Article 880:

_Abstractions committed by husbands at the expense of their wives, by

wives at the expense of their husbands ... can give rise only to civil

actions for damages_.”

“We know that,” observed Mr. Hamel.

“Within the family there is no theft. To fix suspicion on Mrs. Frasne

at the trial is not denouncing her. But there is something better

still. My instinct rarely deceives me. I have seen the Frasnes’

marriage contract. I had a shrewd idea I should discover something

there. Through the enterprise of an attorney at Grenoble, I arranged

a little investigation, and I discovered there proof that Mrs.

Frasne, in taking one hundred thousand francs from her husband’s

safe, believed she was only taking what belonged to her.”

“I don’t understand,” said Mr. Roquevillard, interrupting.

“You’ll see what I mean. It’s so clear it blinds you. Her husband, in

this marriage contract, agreed to a settlement of one hundred thousand

francs.”

“In case of her survival?”

“No, immediate. But naturally it was revocable in case of divorce, and

the husband retained control of it. The arrangement was for a separate

maintenance account. Nevertheless, Mrs. Frasne, ignorant of the law,

might have supposed that this money was actually hers, and that in

leaving her husband’s household she had the right to take it away with

her. It was an absurd way of looking at it, but for that very reason

just the way a woman would have worked it out: in this way I explain

to myself why the thief took particular pains to appropriate only one

hundred thousand francs out of an envelope enclosing a deposit of one

hundred and twenty thousand. That was not theft, it was reimbursement.

Mrs. Frasne believed she was availing herself of her just rights.”

“Yes,” concluded Mr. Roquevillard, interested in so solid an argument,

“the contract explains all.”

“And it is acquittal, certain and incontestable,” declared Mr. Battard,

growing animated, and beginning to wave his long arms. “What jury would

hold out against such a demonstration? I’ve very rarely held so many

trump cards in my hand.”

“You don’t always defend the innocent,” insinuated the president.

“Innocent or guilty, it’s the proof which counts. Here we have it.”

The father of the accused, who wanted a complete rehabilitation, next

took up the subject.

“The discovery of the contract is indeed a good point for the defence.

Your eloquence, Battard, will make the best use of it, and we can

count on ultimate success. But there is one thing I must ask you at

once to bring out in your argument. Maurice did not go away with Mrs.

Frasne without resources of his own. He had more than five thousand

francs with him, borrowed for the most part from his two sisters,

his great-uncle Stephen and his aunt Camille Roquevillard, who will

testify to it if necessary. In the village of Orta, where they stayed,

he received, further, a cheque for eight thousand francs remitted by

the Society of Credit, from the Chambéry branch, who will produce the

cancelled voucher for us. These explanations are indispensable from

two points of view. In the first place, they anticipate a possible

new accusation, which the plaintiff, abandoning Article 408 on the

abuse of confidence, may base on Article 380 _in fine_. Theft

between married persons doesn’t come within the scope of the law,

that’s understood; but the penal code adds: ‘With respect to all

other individuals who shall have received or applied to their own

use all or any part of the things stolen, they shall be punished as

if guilty of theft.’ There must be nothing equivocal on this head.

And this paragraph will not apply at all if my son is cleared from all

suspicion of having lived with this woman at her expense. I hold this

absolutely essential to the preservation of his honour.”

“Very good,” approved Mr. Hamel.

“Very good,” repeated Mr. Battard indifferently.

And Mr. Roquevillard, whose face had been glowing with excitement, grew

serene again with the hope of passing safely through the test, and

concluded in two words:

“Now we are armed, and victory is certain.”

The president’s eyes, pale blue and dim with age, were lifted sadly.

“My friend, haven’t you forgotten the difficulty I spoke of at the

beginning of our interview?”

It was the old agony coming back again.

“What difficulty?”

Mr. Battard at once assumed the first place again, never having

willingly given it up.

“There you are. Our fine plan, and I have not a single doubt of its

success, collapses on account of your son’s obstinacy.”

“My son’s obstinacy?”

“Exactly. We have just explained to him in prison our plan to save him.

Do you know what he said to us?”

“I’m afraid I can guess.”

“He said he formally objected to having Mrs. Frasne’s name mentioned in

his defence, and that if it is, he will assume all the blame himself at

once.”

“I was afraid of it,” muttered Mr. Roquevillard beneath his breath.

“I tried in vain to make him see the absurdity of this chivalry, to

explain that he was not accusing anybody, since Mrs. Frasne was not

punishable under the law. I told him that what his mistress had done

could even be explained by her inexperience of business, her erroneous

interpretation of her marriage contract. It was all useless. I ran

against an invincible obstinacy.”

“Did he give you any reasons?”

“Just one--his honour.”

“Honour is one reason.”

“No, it’s only a sentiment. In courts of justice we must not take the

point of view of honour, but of the law.”

The president, who did not approve this theory, presented the question

in another form.

“It’s Mrs. Frasne’s honour especially that he takes into account. To

save his own honour he must establish the fact that he has neither

stolen a sum of money nor profited by the theft of some one else. He

can prove the first by argument from Mrs. Frasne’s marriage contract,

and the second by an affidavit from the International Bank of Milan,

where Mrs. Frasne’s funds were deposited. But he objects categorically

to this line of proof.”

“Did you speak of it to him yourself?”

“I did, and I told him that he was running a great

danger to go before a jury thus unarmed.”

“What did he say to you?”

“That he would not let Mrs. Frasne be accused of anything whatsoever,

and that he forbade his defender even to utter her name. We found him

immovable. ‘Well, then,’ Mr. Battard objected to him, ‘how do you

wish us to defend you?’ ‘How can any one think me guilty?’ he replied

proudly. ‘Let them consider where I come from, and who I am. That ought

to be enough.’”

“What a child!” began Mr. Battard, stroking his fine beard contentedly.

“Undoubtedly an honourable family is a potent argument, and I count

on making good use of it at the trial. But it is accessory to the

main argument, as it were. It doesn’t go to the bottom of the matter.

One doesn’t use parents for arguments. You might as well use dead

ancestors.”

“They bear witness for our characters,” replied Mr. Hamel, not without

some solemnity.

“There is a guilty party,” continued Mr. Battard. “Don’t let us

forget that. Willingly or unwillingly, the jury will look for one.

If it isn’t the lover it’s the mistress. If it isn’t the mistress

it’s the lover. We have proofs that it is the mistress. Shall we

refuse to produce them? There’s no sense in it. I warned your son,

my good brother, that I could not consent to defend him on these

conditions, and I have come to say the same to you. You know how

warmly I should have undertaken it, that I should have brought to bear

my utmost pains upon it. Tried on these lines, what can be done? As you

see, I am deeply affected by this decision, but it is impossible for me

to present myself in court thus bound.”

The unfortunate father of the accused held out his hand.

“I lose very valuable assistance,” he said; “perhaps even the boy’s

safety. But the defence must not be fettered.”

Both lawyers were equally moved, despite the lack of mutual sympathy

between them. One cannot share the same professional life, the same

conflicts, the same mental preoccupations, without some trace of

sympathy remaining.

“See him yourself,” said Mr. Battard again, rising. “Perhaps you can

get him to consent where we have failed.”

“No, I am afraid not.”

“If you succeed in persuading him, I am at your service still, and

you can count on my finest efforts. It’s nearly six now, so I must be

excused. I’ve a business engagement that I must keep.”

Mr. Roquevillard went with him to the door, and thanked him again on

the threshold.

“We have been on opposite sides sometimes, brother Battard, but I

shan’t forget that in this most important matter of my life you

unhesitatingly put your devotion and talent at my disposal.”

“No, no, not at all,” replied the great trial lawyer,

astonished at his own good will; “I thought to come out of

it better than this. It was a fine case. See if you can persuade

your son. I’ll take it up again for you.”

When Mr. Roquevillard returned to his office Mr. Hamel had gone up to

the fire and was poking the coals absent-mindedly. He sat down opposite

to him, and both stayed there a long time thinking, saying nothing.

“My voice has never carried very far,” said the president, pursuing his

inward reasonings, “and age has broken it. I’ve never known how to do

anything but make things clear, not move people. However, I shall be on

hand. I’ll say a few words about the family of the accused, and dwell

on his own good character. But there must be some one else to make the

argument. I can only be your assistant, my friend.”

He did not offer any opinion on Maurice’s attitude, perhaps did

not explain it to himself. He maintained that defiant, not to say

disdainful, attitude toward women which you find often in the latter

days of an austere and well-disciplined life. The honour of a Mrs.

Frasne did not seem to him worthy of so much consideration. There was

a story told of him as illustrating the excess of this trait in him,

namely, that he had bowed once to a lady of doubtful reputation on

the street, and she had taken great credit to herself for it, since

his respect carried such great weight everywhere; and that when he

heard about it afterwards he never again saluted anybody in the city’s

streets for fear of repeating his mistake.

“Will the jury guess the generous reason of his silence, do you

think?” Mr. Roquevillard asked himself aloud, knowing his son better.

“It isn’t likely.”

“It’s impossible,” declared Mr. Hamel plainly. “Your son will be lost,

though there’s no reason for shielding this person. But haven’t we the

right to defend him in spite of himself?”

“How do you mean?”

“A defence is obligatory at trials, as you know, as well as I. In

default of a lawyer of the accused’s own choosing, the president

appoints an official one for him. If Mr. Battard is officially

appointed, and it will be enough if I, as president, mention him to the

presiding judge, he will be completely at liberty again to make his

argument. Yet he would run the risk of being repudiated by his client.”

“But such a repudiation would influence the jury unfavourably.”

“I don’t see any other way. At least----”

And the fine old man stopped talking, deaf to the repeated questions

put to him by Mr. Roquevillard.

“The case is lost,” the latter murmured at last.

Then Mr. Hamel rose: “You believe in God, my friend, like me. Ask help

from Him. He will give you inspiration. Your son is innocent. He must

be acquitted. His real fault is not one that calls for man’s justice.

It touches only himself, and unhappily his family.”

As he prepared to go, his face already toward the door,

he turned back again, and all of a sudden held put his

hands to his professional brother, an unusual gesture showing

the tenderness that had lain concealed beneath this stiff energy of

his for so many years. It was surprising and sweet, like an expression

of freshness and purity on an old woman’s face, or flowers that go on

blooming even after the snow has come. The two men embraced each other

with emotion.

“You at least won’t abandon us,” said Mr. Roquevillard. “Thank you.”

“I don’t forget,” replied the old man.

And flinging his overcoat round his shoulders, its empty sleeves

flapping, he went away hastily down the corridor, his host scarcely

able to keep up with him and show him to the door.

Left alone, Mr. Roquevillard seated himself at his work-table, where

so many difficulties, material and moral, had been worked out before,

his head in his hands, seeking for some way in which to save his son,

without whose safety the whole line of Roquevillards would be lost as

well. He was less arbitrary, more indulgent, and more apt than Mr.

Hamel to understand men and life, shut up as the latter had been with

his transcendental prejudices as in a tower; and he recognised in

Maurice’s resolution that tenacity and sense of responsibility which

from generation to generation had created and maintained the strength

of the Roquevillard family. That the boy was using this same force

to destroy it was the pity of the thing. To create his individual

happiness he had compromised the past and future of his people, though

their distinctive traits, nevertheless, showed even in his faults. His

father acquitted him of cowardliness and baseness, reflecting that the

young man might maintain the family traditions at their right level,

and use for their normal ends the faculties that he had so perverted,

if he could only take again his proper place in his home and in

society. At all costs he must be rescued and completely freed from this

love that he would not repudiate.

“At least----” repeated Mr. Roquevillard, who had been struck by this

mysterious phrase of Mr. Hamel. What had he meant by this reservation?

He raised his bent head, and, leaning back in his easy-chair, gazed

straight in front of him. His eyes rested on the map of La Vigie

hanging on the wall, outside the circle of the lamplight, and barely

distinguishable in the shadow. It brought his land before him in the

guise of ancestor and counsellor. And yet at the same time the cruel

syllogisms of Mr. Battard echoed persistently in his mind.

“There has been a theft. Therefore, there is a guilty person. Who is

it? If it isn’t the lover it’s the mistress. He won’t have the mistress

accused, therefore it will be the lover. How could he reply to this

argument in a way to convince the jury’s rustic brains?”

And suddenly, as he traced the blurred outlines of the map, he thought

an idea broke forth in it, like a light in the darkness.

“If we suppress the fact of theft, then no one will be guilty. The

jury will have to acquit him. How can we do away with the theft?”

And La Vigie spoke to him.

Some moments later Margaret knocked discreetly at his door.

“Come in,” he said. “I’m alone.”

“Well, father, what have you decided?”

He explained the new danger which arose from Maurice’s obstinacy. “Mr

Battard gives us up. He declines to plead,” he said finally.

“Then who will defend him?” she asked, quite confused, “and how?”

“Don’t distress yourself yet, little girl,” he said. “I think I know a

way.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell you later. Let me stay here now and think it over. It will

involve making a great sacrifice.”

“Make it quickly, father.”

The girl’s eyes burned with such a light that all her pure and generous

soul shone through it.

“Dear little girl,” he murmured proudly.

She smiled at him, with the rare smile of those who have lived long

with sorrow.

“Father,” she said, “I have always thought you

would be the one to defend him.”

II

THE FAMILY COUNCIL

“AM I in the way?” asked Margaret.

She stopped on the threshold of her father’s office, seeing such a

numerous company gathered there.

“I was going to look for you,” said her father. “You belong here with

us.”

A tall, withered old man, with his coat closely buttoned up, who was

leaning on the mantelpiece, beneath which a bright fire was burning,

threw out in a high head voice:

“In my time they didn’t admit women to the family councils.”

“It isn’t a woman that’s compromised the family, however,” came

the brisk reply from the depths of an armchair, where sat a rather

vigorous, well-matured lady dressed in black.

But it was purely a discussion of principles with both of them,

for they promptly made truce and welcomed the girl with a good

grace. Margaret greeted each member of the family circle in

turn. First came her great-uncle Stephen Roquevillard, who,

though older than Mr. Hamel, carried the burden of his eighty

years quite lightly; then her aunt by marriage, Mrs. Camille

Roquevillard; then her cousin Leo, the latter’s son, a young

manufacturer at Pontcharra in Dauphiné; and finally Charles Marcellaz,

who had arrived that morning from Lyons.

Outside the windows a heavy sky, charged with snow, seemed to hang

low above the castle, almost crushing it. Already the clouds swung

round the turret, and the leafless trees stretched their supplicating

branches upward. Only the ivy on the tower of the archives preserved

its tint of eternal spring. The room, in spite of its four windows,

seemed filled with the bitterness of the day. The book-cases, the

portraits, the landscape by Hugard, seemed to wear a look of sadness.

The latest law reports, piled on a stand, had not been bound, like

those of the preceding years. The big table, covered with briefs, one

of them still open, displaying its citations and extracts from the

statutes, showed a continuity of work which even the gravest cares had

not interrupted; while a fresh bunch of chrysanthemums, placed before

a photograph of Mrs. Valentine Roquevillard, revealed the daily care

given it by a woman’s hand.

The lawyer begged his guests to be seated. He seemed to reflect a

moment, his head bent. He had aged greatly in the past year. The hair

of his head and his short, stiff moustache were turning grey. Two lines

appeared around his mouth; his neck beneath his collar was thin and

hollow. His cheeks were more dull in tint and the flesh less firm. All

these signs of physical failing Margaret never saw without an aching at her

heart. What a difference there was between the man who sat there now at

his table, lost in his thoughts, and that other form robustly erect and

joyful outlined against the sky on the hilltop at last summer’s vintage.

When he stood up, with a single gesture he was himself again. Beneath

the deep arch of his eyebrows his gaze shone out imperiously as of

old, difficult to withstand, fixing itself on the faces of his hearers

with an embarrassing precision. The moment he began to speak his new

attitude showed that he was the head and front of the family, not

easily put down or overborne by many trials.

“I have called you together,” he began, “because our family is in

danger. Now, we all bear the same name, excepting Charles Marcellaz,

who stands in the place of a son to me because he represents my

daughter Germaine. Felicie and Hubert are too far away to be consulted,

but their lives testify to such self-sacrifice that their opinions need

not be asked. I know they are disinterested.”

“You have good news of the captain?” inquired Mrs. Camille

Roquevillard. Her nephew’s uniform had always impressed her favourably,

and she was incapable of thinking of more than one person at a time.

Margaret answered her.

“No news for some time, and the last was not very good. He had come

down with fever.”

“Court opens December 6th,” began Mr. Roquevillard again, “about

three weeks from now. Maurice’s case comes up at the beginning of the

session.”

“It’s only a formality,” said Leo, who was proud of managing a rather

large factory at twenty-eight, and affected a practical and positive

turn of mind that reduced everything to its net results. “An acquittal

is certain.”

The old lawyer closed the young man’s mouth with a categorical “No!”

His daughter shivered. The men looked at each other, surprised and

anxious.

“How do you mean? Why is it ‘No’?”

“Since he’s not guilty.”

“Since it was Mrs. Frasne who took the money.”

The last remark came from Charles Marcellaz, mentioning the common foe

by name.

“The wretch!” added the widow, raising her eyes to the ceiling, and

inwardly regretting that Mrs. Frasne’s name had been uttered in

Margaret’s presence. She divided women simply into two categories, the

virtuous and the wanton, though she did not investigate the origin

of the children that she rescued. Unlike so many intellectual and

emancipated women of to-day, her horizon was limited, but not her

charity or devotion.

“Acquittal is not certain,” resumed the head of the family, “on account

of the conditions which my son imposes as to his defence. I have seen

him several times in the gaol. His will is unshakable. He will not

consent to any defence unless the name of Mrs. Frasne is kept out of

it.”

With one accord the manufacturer and the old attorney rebelled against

this:

“It’s impossible. He’s mad.”

“It’s treachery.”

“He ought not to be listened to.”

“So much the worse. Leave him to his fate.”

This last cowardly advice came from his cousin Leo. Mr. Roquevillard

shut him up with a hurt and angry look, which melted promptly into one

of sorrow. The family was in disaccord if one member of it repudiated

the joint claims upon it. But in the silence which followed old Uncle

Stephen remarked softly:

“Myself, I think Maurice is right.”

Mr. Roquevillard, upon this unexpected interjection, continued his

explanations.

“This generosity might be understood by a jury selected from the ranks

of the well-to-do. It won’t go down with simple farmers. The main

point with them will be the disappearance of the money. It’s a sum the

very figure of which will dazzle them. They are more alive to outrages

against property than to those against persons. This sum, they will

argue, could have been stolen only by _him_ or _her_. If by

her, he would say so, and they should acquit him. In case of doubt,

they would still acquit him. He doesn’t dare accuse her, therefore he

himself is the thief. They have not the same conception of honour as

ourselves.”

“Honour, honour!” repeated Leo twice over, the too evident

disdain of his uncle at his remarks having irritated him. “It’s

important, above all things, to avoid a verdict that will dishonour

us, his family. I don’t admit any honour but that, myself, honour as

recognised by the law.”

The oldest member of the family stared insolently at the young man from

Lyons.

“I beg of you to say no more,” he murmured in a voice that whistled

through his scanty row of teeth.

“Why?” objected the manufacturer, who showed no deference for age.

“Why,” said Uncle Stephen, “because you no longer understand the

meaning of certain words.”

“Exactly. Words. Big words, when it’s you who are using them,” retorted

Leo.

By way of conciliation, Charles Marcellaz contributed a legal

explanation:

“Mrs. Frasne is guilty, but her act doesn’t come within the scope of

the law. Theft committed by a wife to the injury of her husband doesn’t

permit of any action. In accusing Mrs. Frasne, Maurice doesn’t expose

her to any risk, and his testimony is strictly in accordance with the

truth.”

But Uncle Stephen, whose far-away youth had been a stormy one,

pronounced as a court of last resort:

“You don’t accuse a woman under any pretext, if you’ve been her lover.

I recognise your son, Francis.”

The widow Roquevillard, since the beginning of the

conference, had been chiding her son below her breath

for the views he took. He got his downright intelligence from

her, but not her kindness. She made up her mind now to support him

openly against this old man who preached such a strange morality.

“Would you have us respect such creatures?” she asked.

The head of the family silenced the futile quarrel with a wave of his

hand.

“Let me finish,” he said. “When the time comes I’ll ask you for your

opinions. Maurice is opposed to any accusation against Mrs. Frasne.

It does not concern us now whether he is right or wrong, because

his mind is made up, and we can do nothing with him. If the defence

goes beyond the limit he has set for it, he will take the blame upon

himself, he says, rather than sanction her being named. He would rather

charge himself with the crime than that. What will happen in these

circumstances? That is the question, and nothing else. The jury, forced

to accept the material fact of theft, which cannot be denied, impressed

by the loss of so considerable an amount of money, will seek, I foresee

it, a guilty party. Disarmed in the case of Mrs. Frasne, they will turn

upon my son. Whether they admit extenuating circumstances for him or

not, it’s disgrace.”

“Oh, father!” exclaimed Margaret involuntarily.

“The danger is very great. Do you take it all in? Now, I have thought

perhaps of a way to avert this danger.”

The girl, whom her father had not instructed as to his plans before

the family gathering, took heart again.

“Cost what it may, father, it must be done.”

“Here it is. In cases where abuse of confidence is involved, I have

always found that restitution brings acquittal. A jury is especially

sensitive to the loss of money. Suppress this loss and it’s scarcely

necessary to indicate a guilty party. No prejudice, no sanction: no

conviction, no sentence. It’s an association of ideas that’s habitual

with a jury.”

His son-in-law summed things up:

“You want to restore to Mr. Frasne the money that his wife took away

from him?”

“That’s it.”

“One hundred thousand francs!” cried Leo. “It’s quite a figure.”

And Charles Marcellaz protested at once:

“But it’s as much as to admit that Maurice did wrong. He pays the money

back, therefore he was guilty of taking it.”

“No, not that. The man who goes bail for a debtor isn’t that debtor.

Through his lawyer Maurice will explain to the jurors that, although

he isn’t willing to accuse anybody, he intends to be beyond suspicion

himself. If Mr. Frasne is reimbursed, there is no more theft. To leave

Mr. Frasne uncovered is, I suspect, to free my son.”

“Good, Francis,” approved Uncle Stephen, shaking

his head like a great bald bird.

This mark of esteem decided the widow upon a friendly demonstration.

“I don’t understand all these tricks very well,” she said, “but good

repute is worth more than golden girdles, and my heart is with you,

Francis.”

Her son was only reassured by the word “heart,” which committed one

to nothing. He exchanged a look with young Charles Marcellaz which

signified, “These old people treat money with a high hand; as if there

were anything else that gives a family importance or a chance to grow.”

Feeling that he was supported on this question, Charles inquired softly:

“One hundred thousand francs--can you pay back that much, father?”

“That’s another question,” replied Mr. Roquevillard, a little dryly,

beginning to grow a bit weary of these preliminaries. “I shall come to

that presently. First the principles, then the means of applying them.”

But of his own accord, being already decided, he reversed this order,

by adding:

“If necessary I shall sell La Vigie.”

It was the last sacrifice of all. Margaret knew the heroism of it, and

grew quite pale. Charles, divided between respect and self-interest,

admiration and indignation, hesitated, hunted for a way out through

this flood of contrary sentiments, and receiving an ironical glance of

the eye from Leo, began to argue:

“Sell La Vigie! You haven’t time before December 6th. Or

at best you’ll sell for a wretched price. La Vigie is worth

one hundred and sixty thousand at the very lowest, without the woods

that you bought four years ago in Saint Cassin.”

These objections the lawyer had doubtless put to himself already, for

he was prepared with his answer:

“It’s possible,” he said simply. “And if not, then it can be mortgaged.”

“Yes, at five or four and one-half per cent. Five probably, if you

want it immediately. Business men won’t fail to take advantage of

you. And the land yields scarcely three, whereas you only need one

frost or hail-storm to ruin your crops. You have too much experience,

father, not to know that mortgaging is an incurable disease for land, a

fatal one. Country property is a great risk nowadays for one who does

not live off the land, or hasn’t a good income to insure him against

loss from bad seasons or competition. It’s compromising the future

irrevocably. And La Vigie is the family’s patrimony, sacred to the

future, and ought not to be touched.”

Mr. Roquevillard let Charles finish his speech, though he had grown

impatient under it.

“No one loves and understands the land better than I,” he replied,

raising his tone a little. “No one has listened to its counsels, put

his ear to its breast when it has been sick, more truly than I have.

And yet I am the one to be reproached with having forgotten it. Let me

tell you then, if you don’t know it already, that in the human plan of

things there is a divine order that must be respected. Over and above

material legacies I place, for my part, the heritage of morality.

It is not the patrimony that makes a family, but the long line of

generations that have created and maintained the patrimony. If a family

is dispossessed, it can found a new estate elsewhere. If it has lost

its traditions, its faith, its joint responsibility, its honour, if it

is reduced to an assemblage of individuals ruled by contrary interests

and following their own destinies rather than the family’s, then it

is a body emptied of its soul, a corpse that reeks of death, and the

finest estates can never make it live again. A piece of land can be

regained by purchase; the virtue of a race is not for sale. That is

why the loss of La Vigie affects me less than the danger to my son and

my name. But because La Vigie has been from one century to another

the portion of the Roquevillards I was not willing to interrupt so

continuous a transmission without warning, and consulting all of you.

I have given you my own opinion first: I was wrong. Give me yours now

as I call your names, honestly. I don’t say I shall follow your advice

if it is opposed to mine. I am the head of the family and must take the

responsibility myself. But a decision that with one blow shatters the

work of so many generations is a grave one, and it will be a comfort to

me to have the approval of our family council.”

By the silence that followed these words he realised that

the group around him had seized the importance of the

occasion. He glanced toward the map of La Vigie on the

wall, with its notations of the new lands successively added to it, and

the dates of the contracts under which they had been made. So often

during the preparation of his cases his gaze had dwelt on this map,

not to trace its lines and figures, but to summon up the vision of its

woods and fields and vines, with their tillage and vintages. A bit

of the land, with all its agricultural work and the movement of the

seasons over it, lived in its narrow frame, the mere black lines of

which were potent over his imagination.

He turned his eyes from it, and through the windows, under the

lowering sky, could see the castle of the old dukes, built gradually

through the various epochs of its history, half dismantled now, but

still imposing in its guerdon of the past. Better than any documents

or archives, than any manuals or chronologies, it made one stop and

think, because of the very fact that it remained standing like a

witness in the flesh. Of itself it called up memories of ancient

Savoy, and the times of his ancestors and rude wars, while the

pointed arches of the Sainte-Chapelle symbolised the pious impulses

of their hearts. What is left of the dead, with all their acts and

sentiments, if these material signs, through which they realise and

recall themselves, do not exist for us? Did La Vigie, its lands

cleared, subdued, added to and restored, count for nothing in the

destiny of the Roquevillards? And when it should be abandoned, would

not its mainstay, the visible scene of its continuity, be lacking to his

race? In landed properties one generation hands on the spade to another

as ancient couriers used to pass the torch. And here was the last chief

letting it fall.

But the lawyer turned his head away, spurning all hesitation. The

patrimony was not all the family any more than prayer was the church,

or courage a prison cell. Hubert and Felicie carried far away from

their native soil, to the Soudan or to China, the vital energy that

tradition had handed down to them. Maurice, restored again to his

normal life, would root out his fault with toil. And as for Margaret,

the flame of a devoted life burned steadily in her.

He addressed himself first to his daughter, as the youngest of the

company, thinking to hear his thoughts echoed in her reply.

“You, Margaret,” he said, “speak first.”

“I, father? Everything that you do will be all right. Save Maurice,

I implore you. If you think the sale of La Vigie is necessary, don’t

hesitate. We don’t need a fortune. In any case, take my share. Don’t

worry about me. I need very little to live on, and I’ll pull through

somehow.”

“I knew it,” said Mr. Roquevillard approvingly.

He caressed Margaret’s hand softly, while he questioned his nephew next.

“And you, Leo. Remember your father,” he added, mistrusting him a

little.

The young man assumed the important manner of one who

has arrived, a man who has accomplished things, but who

will give you his receipt for success just the same. He would tell

these ignorant old men something about the ways of modern life, and the

new conditions that make it so swift and real and egotistical.

“My dear uncle,” he began, “you are one of those old-timers who start

up crusades everywhere and tilt at windmills. You don’t accomplish

anything by ruining yourself. You ought to look at things in a more

practical light. This very moment Maurice is blackmailing you with his

‘honour.’ Mrs. Frasne’s honour isn’t worth one hundred thousand francs.

My nice cousin is blustering in his prison. When he comes into court

he’ll sing smaller. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve often read the accounts

of criminal trials in the newspapers, as every one does now. Even the

most obstinate prisoners will turn on their victim or accomplices

at the last moment to save themselves. The fear of an unfavourable

verdict is the beginning of wisdom for them. Maurice is an intelligent

boy, with everything to live for: he’ll understand. If by any chance

he doesn’t, well, so much the worse for him, after all. It’s a sad

thing to say before you, uncle, and I’m very sorry for it; but he

would have it so, and I know you like frankness. His danger is all his

own. A family isn’t jointly and severally responsible for the faults

of one member. That’s one of those absurd theories that have been

definitely relegated to the past in our day. ‘Each one for himself,’

is the new motto. No account’s taken of another’s debts, whether it’s your

father or your brother or your son. If I earn money, it’s mine, and my

good and bad acts are mine. There’s plenty of work looking out for your

own happiness, without adding the terrible weight of twenty generations

to it. Advance Maurice’s share to him if you insist on it, but hold

back his brothers’ and sisters’, and something for yourself in your old

age. As for La Vigie, I’d sell it as a matter of fact, if you can get a

good price for it, not to buy the jury’s sympathy with it, but because

land’s no good any more except to some peasant who worries it like a

rat. Industry, machines--that’s the future, for individuals and for

society, too.”

Old Uncle Stephen, upon this harangue, let out a little sharp laugh,

and mumbled:

“He talks well. A little long-winded, but he talks well.”

The widow, for her part, much agitated, put her hands together and

implored the Lord’s assistance.

“You have finished?” asked Mr. Roquevillard, not without a hint of

rudeness.

“I’m through.”

“If I’ve understood you correctly then, you’d be perfectly willing to

throw Maurice overboard.”

“Excuse me, uncle; he jumps overboard. If he were reasonable,

he could easily enough get out of the law’s clutches,

safe and sound. But he doesn’t want to be reasonable.

I’m always for being reasonable, myself.”

The head of the family turned toward his son-in-law.

“And you, Charles, are you also reasonable?”

Marcellaz hesitated before beginning his reply. He had always chafed

a little at his father-in-law’s superiority; the superiority of his

wife’s family over his own struck him on each comparison, and irritated

him, especially since he had gone back again to the country of his

origin. He was an industrious and economical young lawyer, building up

his children’s future obstinately, and appeared jealous and watchful

of his painfully acquired and moderate fortune. Business had absorbed

him, making him limited and hard. But he loved Germaine, and if he

mistrusted agitations and did not like to have his sensibilities

stirred up, it was not because he did not have any. He hesitated,

deploring the past, and hating this situation that did not solve itself.

“Why does Maurice prefer Mrs. Frasne to us even in gaol?” he began.

“It’s absurd, since she doesn’t run any risk of punishment. He betrays

his family for a false point of honour. One hundred thousand francs! To

raise all that money, isn’t it beyond your power? You mustn’t attempt

the impossible.”

“But suppose you must attempt the impossible to save him?” put in

Margaret.

“Well, then,” concluded Mr. Roquevillard, who wanted a positive

answer, “you also, Charles, advise me to desert my son?”

Marcellaz lowered his head, to avoid the ironical eyes of young Leo,

and murmured shamefacedly:

“No, just the same.”

When he raised his head again he was surprised by the look in his

father-in-law’s eyes. Their habitually masterful expression was veiled

and tender, with an unaccustomed sweetness, as of one surprised by the

flow of a stream whose humble source he has discovered beneath some bit

of verdure.

“Your turn, Thérèse,” he said next.

The widow, since her son’s speech, had not heard a single word of

what was said, and the question did not have to be repeated. She

was governed by a sure instinct, and did not confuse herself with

principles, which she applied better than she could define them. Like

most women, she promptly substituted personalities for questions of

theory, a method which at least had the merit of keeping abstract

solutions at safe distance and scattering metaphysical mists.

Throughout the debate she had retained but one word, but that one was a

good one. She couldn’t speak to more than one person at a time, and so

she laid hold on Leo, regardless of the other members of the assembly.

“Each one for himself, did you say?” she began. “If your uncle here had

practised that fine maxim, my boy, you would not this moment be at the

head of a factory that brings you in hundreds and hundreds of francs.”

“Mother, you’re laughing at me,” interrupted Leo,

his self-esteem wounded by this sally.

But the good lady was off, and nothing could stop her.

“No, no, you know what I mean to say. I’ve already told you the story,

and if you’ve forgotten it I’ll refresh your memory. Fifteen years ago

your father invested all his savings in the factory he was starting,

and then the orders stopped coming in and there came a day when he had

to suspend payments. The industry was a new one in the district, and

no one had any confidence in it. He went to see your Uncle Francis,

here, and explained his danger to him. Francis lent him at once without

interest the twenty thousand francs he needed, and needed so badly that

we were threatened with being closed out. That’s how we were saved, my

boy. From that evil hour I’ve had a great horror of poverty. May God

forgive me, if that’s what has made you selfish and mistrustful.”

“Well, well, I didn’t remember,” admitted Leo, with an ill grace.

His mother was filled full of her subject, and was not to be wheedled

by this concession, though ordinarily she always yielded to her son’s

arguments after a little fussing. When two people live much with each

other they don’t pay much attention to themselves, and are quite

surprised sometimes, when some grave matter supplies occasion, to find

themselves at variance. Nowadays it is a difference which is more

and more frequent between one generation and the next, on account of

the loosening of family ties and the rapid transformation of ideas.

The gist of her next remarks was ostensibly intended for her

brother-in-law.

“I’m only related to you by marriage, Francis, but I bear the same

name, and am mindful of it. I’ll put twenty thousand francs at your

disposal if you need it in your turn. I don’t understand a bit of your

histories, but I know you’re in misfortune. As for Mrs. Frasne, she’s a

hussy!”

“Dear aunty, I love you,” said Margaret.

And Mr. Roquevillard added:

“Thank you, Thérèse. I shall probably not need it. I’m happy to think I

can count on you if necessary.”

Last of all, old Uncle Stephen outlined his opinion in a slow but firm

voice, which cracked like an old bell every now and then as he tried to

force it.

“The father is the arbiter of his family and property, Francis. You

have all the responsibility, you needn’t ask leave from any one. I

was younger than your father. We were orphans at an early age, and

he brought us children up and helped us in every way, for he was the

heir and head of the family. In those days--it was under the Sardinian

rule, before the annexation--daughters received only their legal share,

and they were not married for their money. The patrimony went all to

one member of the family, and its obligations could not be neglected

by the one who inherited it. He had to look out for the younger ones,

endowing and establishing them in life, besides seeing to the infirm and

needy and the old folk. These young people to-day don’t know what the

patrimony meant then, when it was the material force of the family, the

whole family grouped about one head, assured of living and enduring

because it held together. To-day what use is there in keeping an estate

together? If you don’t sell it, the law will take a hand and scatter

it when you die. With a forced division of estates there is no more

patrimony. What with each one being for himself on the one hand, and

the continuous prying and meddling of the state, on the other hand, in

all the doings of one’s life, there is no more family. We shall see

what this society of individuals subject to the state will make of

things.”

He gave a circumspect and scornful little laugh, and ended up with less

general considerations.

“However, you’re right to set our honour above money. You’re right,

too, to give us warning. We were with you in your prosperity. Fate

strikes you down, and we must be with you there, too. I haven’t very

much for my part. Outside my legal pension I’ve scarcely more than

twenty-five or thirty thousand francs in securities, the income of

which helps me to get along. I’m already very old. After I’m gone it’s

yours--it’s yours now if you want it.”

Mr. Roquevillard, much moved, replied simply:

“I’m proud of your approval, uncle, and touched by your support. My

work will now be easier to carry through. This sacrifice of money will

mean Maurice’s acquittal: my experience makes me believe that firmly.

I don’t see how I can save La Vigie. Counting up everything, I am

worth----”

“This doesn’t concern us further,” said Uncle Stephen, rising.

“I ought to tell you, on the contrary. I want you all to know in case

La Vigie goes out of the Roquevillards’ hands one day that it hasn’t

been without sorrow, or because there was no necessity. You are my

witnesses. La Vigie is worth at least one hundred and sixty thousand

francs. My Saint Cassinwoods are appraised at twenty thousand. Germaine

had a dot of sixty thousand francs.”

“Ought I to return it all to you or only part of it?” inquired Charles

Marcellaz timidly, his generosity the more to be commended because

regrets, remorse and hesitation went with it. “It is invested at a

certain figure in a share of the law practice I bought at Lyons.”

“By no means, my dear Charles. It belongs to you and Germaine outright,

and you have three children to look out for. When Felicie went into the

convent we bought annuities for her with twenty thousand francs, and we

had reserved a like sum for Margaret’s dot. Of this she has already had

eight thousand francs, which she sent to her brother.”

“One hundred and eight thousand,” counted up Leo, who had been

sulking, beneath his breath. “He comes high.”

He was not aware as yet of the little loans from their sinking funds

of which his own mother and the old magistrate had been guilty the

preceding year.

“Father,” said Margaret, “dispose of my dot. I shall never marry.”

“Women are meant to be married,” declared the widow.

But Margaret added resolutely: “I have my diploma. I shall work. I’ll

start a school.”

“Women oughtn’t to inherit, according to my ideas,” put in Uncle

Stephen, “but I’ll moderate my principles in Margaret’s favour. She

shall have my forty thousand francs when I die.”

“Thirty thousand,” corrected Leo, appraising his loss.

“No, forty,” replied the old man, suppressing his avarice definitely

but painfully in the common crisis. “I put it lower just now

inadvertently. It’s as much as forty-five, to be done with it. I’ll

make a new will. I had made you my heir, Francis.”

“I thank you for Margaret, uncle. But I shall not touch her dot,

which isn’t enough anyway, unless it’s impossible to realise on La

Vigie promptly and at good terms. It will be better to sell the

estate, if possible, than to mortgage it. I’ve thought it all out. The

returns from land nowadays are precarious. With modern transportation

facilities there is competition from such a distance that we can’t any

longer count on profits. I prefer to make Margaret’s future sure, and let my

sons arrange their own schemes of life. If I can’t find any one to buy,

then the land can always be given as security for a loan.”

“We can give you good security, too,” the widow assured him.

“Exactly,” acquiesced Uncle Stephen.

The family council was over. Friendly farewells were exchanged by all

excepting Leo, who still showed a little coldness to his uncle.

“It’s always the security that is lost,” he observed to his mother on

the staircase.

“I’d pay it gladly,” said the latter flatly.

“Oh, you. You’re too good,” retorted her son.

“And you’re too ungrateful,” said his mother.

“It was my father that was helped out of a hole. Not I.”

“You or your father. Doesn’t it come to the same thing?”

“No.”

Charles escorted Mr. Stephen Roquevillard home, and Maurice’s father

was left alone with his daughter. Outside the house the light was

growing dim. Mist was cloaking the turret and the tower of the

archives, as with an evening mantle. The office was filled with the

special sadness that comes with the end of a winter’s day. Margaret put

another log on the fire.

“I’m glad it’s over,” said her father. “It passed off well, I thought.”

But Margaret thought indignantly of her cousin Leo.

“That Leo is bad,” she said. “I detest him.”

“His mother is a fine woman,” was her father’s comment.

They were silent. Then both of them glanced at the map of La Vigie

on the wall. Instead of a faded sheet of paper, they saw a vision of

the place again under the beautiful sunlight of the vintage time,

with all its golden vines, the harvested fields, the pastures ready

to be tilled, the great comfortable house. The estate which they had

sentenced to be sold was making its last appeal to them.

Like Maurice on the Calvary of Lemenc, before he had gone away from

them, but with a different sort of love, a love from which all selfish

thought of happiness was purged, they said good-bye to La Vigie.

III

MR. FRASNE’S CLEVER TRANSACTION

NOTHING was being talked about in all Chambéry but the clever

transaction of Mr. Frasne. It was especially the favourite topic of

conversation at the reception given by Mr. and Mrs. Sassenay one

evening in celebration of the eighteenth birthday of their daughter

Jeanne. One of the characteristics of provincial society seems to be

that the men take the occupations and preoccupations of the city into

company with them, clinging to the excitements of their business in the

midst of social pleasures. At the Sassenays’ they one and all abandoned

the ladies to the rivalries of clothes, and between the waltzes made

off hastily into corners to take up the burden of their financial

slanders and professional cares. On this special occasion, the family

drama which had shaken the Roquevillards’ long standing social

status, with its climax due to come off the day after to-morrow--it

was the evening of December 4th--at the sitting of the court of

assizes, was stirring public comment to its depths. Public opinion

in Chambéry was tired, no doubt, of the well-founded and continuous

ascendancy of the Roquevillards. It was worked up with the desire for

levelling down, which is one of the modern zeals, as well as irritation

at the persistent pride that refused to plead for itself or beg for

sympathy even in misfortune. People, in short, were on the watch for

the final collapse of a race which at other times had been considered

an ornament to the city.

In the smoking-room were gathered men of law, doctors, manufacturers,

capitalists; a few of them now and then, as the first strains of a

waltz sounded, made for the group of girls and younger women seated

in the drawing-room, like an assaulting party issuing in victorious

sallies from a place besieged, to return again shortly to their

masculine circle. Only one of them all knew nothing of this lucky

speculation of the notary, which some found fault with and others

praised, namely, the Viscount de la Mortellerie. His excuse was

that he had tarried too long in the fourteenth century, with the

history of the ducal castle that he was writing. In vain he tried

to interest his neighbours in the ingenuity of Amedeus V, who in

1328 had wooden conduits arranged to bring water from the fountain

of Saint Martri to his vast kitchens, where it gushed out in an

enormous stone basin, which served also as a pool for the salmon

that were destined for the ducal table. People would not listen to

this babbler who was almost six hundred years behind the times.

Mr. Latache, president of the Chamber of Notaries, sententious,

ceremonious, bored, upholding the dignity of his life and business

reputation, bore the brunt of the attack made by the little lawyer

Coulanges. This latter, a scented, curled and powdered little

individual, had assumed the defense of Mr. Frasne on behalf of the

younger school.

“No, no,” declared Mr. Latache solemnly, “the criminal action follows

the civil in such matters. Frasne should have waited for the jury’s

verdict before accepting reparation for material damage. Or rather,

since he has been fully indemnified, he should withdraw his complaint

altogether. He ought not to mix up money matters with his vengeance.”

“Pardon me, pardon me,” parried the bubbling lawyer, fencing promptly.

“Let us reason the thing out, I beg of you. Mr. Frasne made a complaint

against Maurice Roquevillard of embezzlement in the sum of one hundred

thousand francs, and instituted a civil suit against him. The elder

Roquevillard offered to restore this sum to him before the arrest, and

you blame him now for accepting it?”

“I don’t blame him for accepting it, but as he has taken it, I blame

him for keeping up his suit. And I don’t understand Mr. Roquevillard.”

“Oh, he knows his son is guilty, and he buys the jury’s indulgence in

this way. As for Mr. Frasne, since conviction is always uncertain at

trials, he prefers a bird in the hand to two in the bush. Besides, at

the hearing, he will make capital out of this payment, as if it were an

admission of guilt. It’s a very strong presumption.”

“It’s a great advantage to Frasne certainly. I can’t explain

Roquevillard’s motives, but just the same he’s too experienced to leave

such a weapon in his adversary’s hands without having taken precaution

on his own part. The receipt which he must have demanded surely

provides that if he discharges the obligation of a third party, it’s

irrelevant whether that third party is his son or not.”

“As a matter of fact, the receipt does make this reservation, and in

the most formal terms,” announced another lawyer, Mr. Paillet, coming

up at this moment and entering into the discussion without loss of time.

“I supposed as much,” said Mr. Latache triumphantly. “And rather than

affix his signature to a paper containing such a restriction, Mr.

Frasne would have been better advised to leave it to the decision of

the court.”

But Mr. Coulanges was not ready to surrender yet.

“What does such a receipt prove?” he objected. “Would you give up one

hundred thousand francs for some one you didn’t know?”

The lookers-on agreed that he was right, and testified to their opinion

by a flattering murmur of approval, as much as to say that indeed such

a piece of generosity must have come from some imperious necessity.

Nevertheless, his success was short-lived. Mr. Paillet swept it

away for him like a conjurer making a nutmeg disappear before their

eyes. He was a gay, round, fat man, who knew everything, poking in

everywhere and telling everything he knew.

“I see,” he said, “that you don’t, any of you, know of Mr. Frasne’s

finest stroke.”

“Tell us about it.”

“Well, well.”

He held his company by the importance of the news he brought. But the

orchestra tuned up for an everlasting set of landers, and he abandoned

his scandalised hearers in a craven manner, rolling off like a ball

to the feet of the lady whom he had asked to be his partner. From

the recess of the window the gentlemen who remained behind, for lack

of anything better, watched the evolutions of the various couples,

assuming a detached and judicial air as the dancers of both sexes

advanced and retreated, saluted or turned according to the rhythm

of the music and the various figures. Among the dancers was Jeanne

Sassenay, her cheeks like roses, her hair rebelling against its neat

and careful dressing. Quite graceful and childlike in a pale blue dress

cut slightly low in the neck and showing a bit of white flesh caressed

by the crystal lights, she was putting her whole mind on keeping the

figures straight. Her whole being glowed with her pleasure and the

importance of the evening.

She excited a variety of comments from the lookers-on:

“Not bad looking, that little girl,” said one.

“Very thin: look at her shoulder blades,” said another.

“Only eighteen,” remarked a third.

“Oh, she’ll marry soon.”

“Why?”

“She has a large dot.”

“Yes, but her brother has piled up debts.”

“Whom will she marry?”

“No one knows yet. They talk of Raymond Bercy.”

“Who was engaged to Miss Roquevillard?”

“He’s just beginning his doctor’s practice.”

“Exactly; he hasn’t killed any one yet.”

After the final galop the lawyer Paillet, finding himself thirsty,

conducted his companion to the refreshment-room, where he drank some

champagne and ate a _pâté de foie gras_ sandwich; and thus

restored, condescended to reappear before the circle, where his

desertion was severely appreciated. But he held out against them

laughingly.

“If you scold me you shan’t learn anything.”

“Well, then, we’re listening.”

“You were still at the point where Mr. Roquevillard had restored one

hundred thousand francs to Mr. Frasne.”

“It was interesting, wasn’t it?”

“Not very, compared with what you’re going to hear next.”

The first notes of a polka sounded, and he turned his head. His

hearers trembled lest he should have the heart to leave them a

second time with their mouths watering. Quite a group decided to

mass themselves near the door and bar his passage.

“You’re warm. It wouldn’t be wise,” observed Mr. Latache.

And the lawyer Coulanges, adopting a different method, began to cast

doubts upon the famous piece of news that had been promised them.

Thereupon the news gatherer opened his mouth to let loose his prey.

“Very well, then. You don’t know that Mr. Frasne acquires for nothing

the fine estate of La Vigie, worth about two hundred thousand francs.”

Exclamations of incredulity met him on all sides.

“You don’t say so!”

“You’re laughing at us.”

Mr. Battard and Mr. Vallerois, the district attorney, who had been

chatting at a distance, came up at this moment, their ears alert for

news.

“Exactly,” said the orator. “For nothing.”

“But how?”

“Like this: Mr. Roquevillard, in order to secure the money he wanted,

advertised La Vigie for sale. Mr. Doudan, the notary, offered him one

hundred thousand francs for it, payable immediately, but reserving the

right to keep the name of the true purchaser secret for a fortnight.

A fortnight--bear this in mind. Mr. Roquevillard, who hadn’t much

time or choice before the trial, accepted. He could not hope for

anything better in so brief an interval. Now, through the indiscretion

of a clerk, it has leaked out--I learned it just now--that the real

purchaser was Mr. Frasne. Mr. Frasne, if you please, spends one

hundred thousand francs with one hand and receives it back with the

other, and finds himself to boot, by a simple trick the proprietor of a

magnificent estate for nothing.”

This machiavellian ruse was too far beyond the common run of bourgeois

artifice not to provoke astonishment. They did not hunt for the moral

point of it, neither did they sound the depths of the Roquevillards’

sacrifice of the family patrimony. Mr. Frasne had gone through a sorry

crisis; his home, if not his fortune, had been ruined, and he had

devoted his energies to the only thing that was still susceptible of

diverting him--business--as an artist finds his consolation in art or

a rich woman hers in charity. Interesting combinations of contracts

or figures established an alibi for his sad thoughts. He forgot

his own weariness for the moment in unravelling the affairs of his

clients, with a satisfaction like that of a skilful fighter in the

battle of interests. The case of La Vigie had inspired him to a bit of

audaciously clever tactics that he could not resist. He had hoped the

secret of it would be guarded until after the assizes. But what secret

can be kept in a town of less than twenty thousand inhabitants, where

it is regarded as pretentious and original to lead one’s personal life

as one likes?

Mr. Latache was the first to give his views on the transaction,

in two words, which, coming from the President of the

Chamber of Discipline, were worth a speech.

“It’s not just.”

“Why do you say that?” retorted Mr. Coulanges. “An estate was for sale.

Some one bought it. It’s the law.”

Nevertheless, the sagacious manœuvre of Mr. Frasne won, after all, only

a small measure of approbation, and this from the youthful camp, which

plays its enthusiasm to-day, like its funds, on solid wickets. He had

succeeded too well in his material enterprise, and the gallery, severe

in manners and practical in its good sense, was more sorry about his

conduct now than it had been diverted by his wife’s flight with Maurice.

Besides, he came from Dauphiné, and in the eyes of a community

accustomed to particularise, that made a stranger of him, whom such

gains enriched at the expense of their own province. People had not

been vexed, to be sure, by the humiliation of the Roquevillards,

because the high esteem in which the family was generally held

irritated the mediocrities, but they were surprised to find the

Roquevillards making the disaster worse, astonished to think they

consummated their ruin with their own hands. Why this disinterestedness

if Maurice was not guilty, and if he was, why this admission? For they

were not aware of the resolution the young man had taken. Mr. Hamel was

very secretive, and as for Mr. Battard, his silence was calculated: an

epicure of cases that made talk, he still hoped that his support would

be called for.

At the same time he was excited by these revelations, and could not

refrain from talking in his turn. The special circle where the affair

had been under discussion was now disturbed, the dance being finished,

by new arrivals. Conversation began again here and there, breaking

out in little separate groups, like smothered fire that sparkles and

scatters. The district attorney, Mr. Vallerois, rejoined Mr. Battard in

the embrasure of a window.

“You will hold the cards when you plead now,” he said. “You can riddle

Mrs. Frasne’s husband with sarcasm.”

“It isn’t certain yet that I shall make the argument,” replied the

lawyer.

“What! You are not to make the argument?”

Mr. Battard had to explain his confidences, which had escaped him

without thinking, by going further into the thing.

“That young duffer Maurice doesn’t wish to be seriously defended. He

prefers to look out for his mistress’s honour.”

He pronounced these last words with disdainful irony, explaining to the

attentive magistrate that the accused man threatened to contradict in

advance any reference to Mrs. Frasne as the guilty party.

“If you don’t argue, then who will?”

“I don’t know. Mr. Hamel doubtless.”

His tone showed hardly any more respect for the aged lawyer than for

the guilty woman. The former’s age and feebleness were thrown into

high relief by the single mocking mention of his name.

After some moments of silence Mr. Vallerois concluded:

“I understand what Roquevillard’s driving at now. He’s suppressing the

theft to save his son. It’s his last chance. He doesn’t hesitate to

sacrifice his fortune. It’s very fine.”

Not very much interested in this praise, Mr. Battard sketched a vague

gesture that was susceptible of various interpretations.

“All this is between you and me,” he said, to recapture his

professional secret.

And with his beard carefully displayed against his shirt front, he made

his way up to a group of ladies, stepping slowly and majestically, like

a peacock preparing himself for a promenade with his mates.

Left alone, the magistrate made no haste to search out another guest to

talk with. He still thought admiringly of Mr. Roquevillard, recalling

the man’s sorrowful and valiant life since that day in the office when

he had been told of Mr. Frasne’s complaint. Even then he had shown

himself unselfish and proudly prepared for sacrifices.

“Why am I the only one here,” Mr. Vallerois asked himself, “to

appreciate this great force of character? There isn’t a man here can

hold a candle to him, yet these gentlemen just now treated him so

loftily, as if misfortune had made him small and insignificant. The

provinces are vindictive and envious.”

Along these simple lines that were being laid down, he reflected,

the drama would be a moving one, very entertaining for the spectators.

Young Maurice, appearing disarmed before the jury, betrayed his

family, and his father was sacrificing the old estate for a song to

save the prodigal son. But if the counsel for the accused had his

lips sealed, another voice, more powerful than his, could make itself

heard instead. After the prosecutor’s speech for the plaintiff, was it

not the duty of the public minister to present the case in his turn?

Instead of relying upon “justice,” according to the formula sacred to

this sort of business, more private than public, was it not his duty to

intervene with some effect and set forth once and for all the luckless

preponderating rôle, the unique rôle, of Mrs. Frasne, the only one who

had been guilty of any abuse of confidence, even though she could not

be condemned for it? What a fine opportunity to serve truth, to render

unto each according to his works, to carry a little joy into this so

sorely tried household of the Roquevillards.

All these reflections crowded through Mr. Vallerois’s brain, but he

himself was disposed of by the circumstances of the thing: a general

advocate would occupy the place of the public minister at the assizes,

and not he. The case of Maurice Roquevillard did not properly concern

him further. Besides, he had been blamed for the unusual measure

he had taken with the notary last year, for it had not been kept

a secret very long. What was the use of mixing in an affair that did

not concern him, from which nothing but unpleasantness could arise? For

the sake of peace his sympathy was well enough trained to be content

with doing nothing.

Rather than sound the whole depth of his egotism, or pass harsh

judgment on it, he hastily rejoined the throng of guests, happy to feel

that there were people round him. The presence of our fellow creatures

is a comfort to us when we have been tempted to take the measure of our

pettiness. That is a kind of temptation which is always reserved for

the best of us to yield to.

The movement toward the refreshment tables had now begun, and there

was a coming and going through the two drawing-rooms, the ante-chamber

and the dining-room, prolonging itself, with frequent delays as the

young people found opportunities for flirtation. Some of them, all for

dancing, called noisily for the orchestra again. Some of the young

girls showed already that they were clever and happy in the tricks and

coquetry that land a husband some day. Some of them, though only a few,

so far as a cursory glance could tell, did not bother to see whether

a man wore an engagement ring or not before they trained their artful

batteries on him. The eyes of youth flashed under the chandeliers,

as sparkling as the jewels which shone in hair or corsage, on wrists

or fingers. Among the men’s black coats the clear bits of colour and

mellow outlines of the women’s frocks stood out like water-colours.

In which category did Miss Jeanne Sassenay belong, determinedly making

off with Raymond Bercy, the fiancé last year of Miss Roquevillard,

while her mother’s vigilant eye followed her with solicitude and some

surprise? Her little head was like a Greek statue’s, borne so elegantly

and easily above its stone shoulders: was it so scatter-brained it

could not even cherish the memory of her abandoned friend? Were her

cool blue eyes, with their clear glances, only indifferent and not

sincere? Her cheeks glowed with the exercise of dancing, but she was

not smiling, she was wrinkling her eyebrows, and shut her lips tight,

as if she were making some important decision. It was an air that

contrasted quaintly with her pretty, childlike manner.

“I haven’t danced with you yet,” the young man was saying. “Won’t you

give me a waltz?”

“No,” she replied emphatically, first looking round to see that they

were quite alone.

“Why not? Are all your waltzes taken?”

“No, not all.”

He did not think her serious, and was not chilled by her coolness.

“I’m warned, then. Many thanks,” he laughed.

She gave one of those tired “ughs,” like workmen lifting a heavy

weight, and then began to talk all at once, full of her subject:

“Indeed I must warn you, sir. Your mother has talked to mamma. And

mamma has no secrets from me. If she ever has any, I guess them. Very

well, then, I’ll never, do you hear, never consent to marry you.”

“I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, I have not asked for your hand,” the

young man retorted in astonishment.

“Your mother has been over the ground, as they say so prettily,” she

resumed.

“Mothers make a great many plans for their sons. This one, however

flattering it is, doesn’t correspond with my intentions.”

“Oh, so much the worse,” said Jeanne.

“I’m not thinking of marrying,” he said.

“You’re wrong there,” said the girl, the reproach sounding queer and

almost funny from her childish mouth.

“When one has the luck in life to meet a young girl like Margaret

Roquevillard,” she added, “one oughtn’t to wreck such happiness one’s

self.”

So this was what she had been driving at. He understood. She should

have known from the change in his face that she had struck home, but at

her tender age vision is not clear enough to read the inner feelings

through the features. She was accordingly hardly moderate in heaping up

her boarding-school disdain upon him.

“It’s always shabby, my dear sir, to desert a fiancée. And when she is

in trouble it’s perfectly abominable.”

What right had she to scold him so violently? Raymond

Bercy was irritated by it all, and yet, at the bottom of his

heart, was conscious of a bitter-sweet pleasure in hearing Margaret

spoken of. His anger and bitterness crept into his retort.

“I didn’t appoint you to judge me, mademoiselle,” he said, “but if you

talk to me in the name of another, my reply is that----”

“I’m not speaking in any one’s name----”

“That you are misinformed. It wasn’t I who broke our engagement. I

would gladly have kept it.”

“You would have kept it? Oh, when the sun is shining, you men, all of

you, are always on hand; and when it rains, there isn’t a soul of you

about.”

“But you are too unjust, after all. I shall lose my patience with you.”

She was as far as ever from keeping still, going on to worry him, like

a wasp that hovers round you and tries to sting.

“It’s a great mistake for a man to get cross,” she said.

“I don’t have to report to you, Miss Sassenay. Let me tell you,

however, that Miss Roquevillard broke our engagement of her own free

will.”

“Out of generosity.”

“Without any consideration for my feelings or the pain it gave me.”

“In such circumstances you shouldn’t have let her break it,”

declared Jeanne. Her cheeks had grown quite red, and her

self-possession was gone. She was contradicting herself furiously,

and he, too, was scarcely more calm than she was.

“And if her brother is convicted?” he demanded.

“’Tis a fine case, isn’t it?”

“Oh, really, do you think so, Miss Sassenay?”

“Yes, really. As for me, if I were in love it would be all the same to

me if my fiancé were sent to the galleys. I’d follow him, do you hear,

sir. And if I had to commit some crime to be sent after him, I’d commit

it. Biff, boom! Just like that!”

“You’re a child,” he commented; then brusquely he changed his tone, and

whispered in a heavy voice:

“Do you think I have no regrets for her?”

She changed as quickly as he had, triumphantly, and was almost on the

point of falling on his neck. Mrs. Sassenay, surprising this by-play

from a distance, was distressed by what she saw, and blamed herself for

her neglect.

“Oh, I knew quite well, sir,” said Jeanne, “that you couldn’t want to

marry me. Good, then, be off with you. Run and tell Margaret. Beg her

for my sake to forgive you. Take your place again quickly in the family

before the trial comes on. Afterwards it will be too late. It will do

more good than prescribing all sorts of nasty medicines for your sick

people.”

“Thanks.”

“Be off then, at once.”

“But it’s half-past eleven,” argued Raymond.

“To-morrow, then.”

Mrs. Sassenay, meanwhile, making her way toward her

daughter, was stopped by a group of people in animated

conversation. The group was growing larger every minute.

“Are you sure?” asked Mr. Vallerois of a young officer whose uniform

bore the epaulettes of the general staff.

“Quite sure,” said the officer. “The news reached our division at six

o’clock. The general went in person to call on Mr. Roquevillard.”

“In person,” corroborated Mr. Coulanges, who had been astonished and

impressed by this official step toward one who was down and out like

Mr. Roquevillard.

Mrs. Sassenay turned to her neighbour, Mr. Latache, for information.

“What news are they talking about?” she inquired.

“Of the death of Lieutenant Roquevillard,” was the reply. “He died of

yellow fever in the Soudan.”

“How unfortunate that family is!” murmured Mrs. Sassenay, moved with

pity.

“Are they not, indeed!” said Mr. Latache.

So cruel a grief centred all the women’s sympathy on the Roquevillards,

and removed the hostility of the men, though people had been complacent

witnesses of the family’s material and moral decadence. They had

merely wanted to take the Roquevillards down a peg or two, but fate

was crushing them with no compassion or reprieve. The partisans of Mr.

Frasne and his clever operation were silent, the district attorney

expressing the sentiment of them all in the phrase:

“Poor things!”

Shortly after this colloquy Jeanne Sassenay disappeared. In vain

her mother searched for her through the rooms. In the vestibule she

perceived Raymond Bercy hastily getting into his overcoat.

“Are you going already?” she asked.

“Yes, Mrs. Sassenay,” he replied, with no further explanation of his

precipitate departure.

She thought she guessed the young man’s trouble, and connected the

circumstances with her daughter’s disappearance, beginning to be

seriously worried.

“Have you seen Jeanne?” she asked of her husband, whom she met at the

entrance to the drawing-room.

“No. Are you looking for her?”

Mr. Sassenay was a frankly active and loyal man, but quite destitute

of psychology; he could overcome the greatest material obstacles, but

was incapable of stopping to analyse sentiments. His wife judged it

useless to tell him of her fears, and contented herself with enjoining

him to look after their guests. For her own part she went straight to

her daughter’s room. She entered, and the moment she turned the switch

of the electric light she discovered Jeanne there--all crumpled up and

shrunken in an armchair, weeping regardless of her rumpled frock.

“Jeanne, what’s the matter?” she asked at once, beginning to pet her.

“Oh, mamma,” wailed the girl.

It was the cry of a little child that is soon quieted.

“Why are you crying, Jeanne?” asked her mother.

“I keep thinking of Margaret’s troubles while I’m dancing,” she

explained.

Mrs. Sassenay breathed more freely. She knew how fond her daughter was

of Margaret Roquevillard. But as the sobs did not stop she asked gently:

“Are you thinking of Lieutenant Hubert?”

“Yes. He was nice ... we used to play tennis together. He was always

the best player.”

The cause of the girl’s grief did not lie in that quarter.

“Poor Margaret!” she added, changing her subject half unconsciously.

“I liked Maurice, who is in prison, better than Hubert. He’ll be

acquitted, won’t he?”

“I hope so, dear.”

“An innocent man who is acquitted, or even one who is

condemned--there’s something fine about it, isn’t there, mamma?”

“Are you sure he’s innocent?”

“Margaret’s brother? How can you ask it?”

Mrs. Sassenay smiled at this assurance and indignation, which she had

provoked on purpose. All the time she was petting and soothing her

daughter, her memory was recalling a long-ago talk she had had with

Mrs. Roquevillard on the subject of their children. “One day perhaps,”

the saintly woman had said to her, “if Maurice is worthy of it, I will

ask your child’s hand for him. She will be near you.”

Maurice had not been worthy, but his prestige of other days was still

potent over this too generous little girl. That was the danger.

It must be looked out for. And while she promised herself to be

careful, Jeanne’s mother thought in spite of herself of those other

Roquevillards, the dead and the living; so deserving, and so sorely

tried.

The noise of the orchestra came up to the room half muffled.

“Dry your eyes, Jeanne. Gently, so. A little powder. There. You’re

looking very well this evening. Now let’s go back quickly to the

drawing-room. People will notice our absence.”

“That’s true, mamma, and I promised this waltz.”

And growing suddenly serene again, the girl preceded her mother down

the hall.

At that very hour Raymond Bercy, completely upset by the death of his

friend Hubert, was pacing the hundred steps opposite the Roquevillards’

house, to and fro. The roof of the castle, covered with snow, showed

vaguely in the starlight. The tower of the archives and the turret

seemed to watch like sentinels over the sleeping town. Through the

four windows of the study which he knew so well a thin light filtered

between the blinds. In there Margaret and her father were suffering

together, struck once more to their very hearts.

He longed to go in and join them, but he dared not. His

broken engagement, his parents’ objections, what the

world would think, all sorts of obscure and selfish motives,

had held him back. But in the cold night, in the course of this walk

which he kept up so late, he came to know his heart better, knew

that sorrow and pity, more than joy, make love increase.

IV

THE COUNSEL OF THE SOIL

SOME decision must be made. Mr. Roquevillard had been stunned

since last evening by his son’s loss, of which he had heard in a

laconic official note, saying that Hubert had died in his country’s

service, far from any help, in an advanced post. His father had

not even the supreme consolation of giving way to his sorrow.

Hubert had gone away to the colonies to seek out danger and win

some glory that should brighten the family’s tarnished name, and

so he was the last victim of Maurice’s heedless wrongs against

them all. Maurice, himself, to-morrow, was to appear in court, and

there was still the struggling with the wilful difficulties of his

defence. No doubt the sacrifice of the family estate would have its

effect. No doubt the reparation made to the plaintiff would render

acquittal certain, or at any rate probable, and turn the tables in

favour of the accused. But even acquittal must not be wrung from

the jury through pity or through favour. To come back again to his

own fireside, to deserve honour again in the city or at the bar, to

continue a tradition and hand it down in his turn, the young man must

leave the court-house stripped of every injurious suspicion, discharged

from every fault against the law and honour. And how was this to be

accomplished without mentioning the name of Mrs. Frasne?

It was true that Mr. Battard, after the sale of La Vigie, had gone back

on his refusal to plead.

“It has cost you more than it’s worth,” he had said, with professional

cynicism. “But your generosity will soften the jury’s minds. They’re

the sort who will split hairs about an egg and hang an orchard thief,

but weep like calves when they learn you’ve sold your land to indemnify

the plaintiff. They may even be capable, if they stop to think, of

convicting your son just the same, on account of the bad example that

you give them, if Mr. Frasne’s clever transaction, when it is made

known in court in the final argument, doesn’t probably precipitate a

furious envy in them that will be in your favour.”

For Mr. Battard thought very ill of justice and humanity, but knew the

case, and offered his services. His reputation made him a coadjutor

that could not be refused. At five o’clock he was to come and have a

last talk in Mr. Roquevillard’s office, with Mr. Hamel, on the main

lines of his argument. Nevertheless, Maurice’s father had no confidence

in the power of Mr. Battard’s showy and sceptical art to sustain the

cause of a whole race.

After luncheon, at which he and Margaret hardly touched their

food, he rose and went out for a walk. His too heavy sorrow smothered

him within doors. Outside he should be able to think more clearly. The

air would revive his thoughts, restore his spent forces and beaten

energy. As he reached the door Margaret called him.

“Father.”

He turned quickly. Margaret, since his wife’s death, and even before

it, had been his confidante and counsellor, his supreme comforter in

life. Since the departure of little Julian, whose father had taken him

back to Lyons the morning after the family council, Margaret and her

father had been left to face each other all alone in the gradually

emptied house. All that night again, almost till morning, they had

talked of Hubert, weeping for him and praying. When Margaret came up to

him now he put his hand on her beautiful hair and let it linger there.

She understood that he was saying a blessing for her, quite low, and

her eyes, so easily misted now, so used to tears, grew moist once more.

“Father,” she asked, “what have you decided on for Maurice?”

“Battard is ready to defend him. He’s coming at five o’clock with

Hamel. I’m going out to think over my last instructions to them in the

open air.”

“You don’t want me to go with you?”

“No, little girl. Don’t worry about me. I’ll work while I’m walking.

We haven’t time for burying our dead. The living need us.”

“Well, then, I’ll go to the gaol and do my part there.”

“Yes, you can tell the sad news to _him_.”

“Poor Maurice, how he will suffer!”

“Less than we do.”

“Oh, no, father. As much as we do, and more than we do. He will

reproach himself.”

“He may well do so. Hubert is gone because of him.”

“Exactly, father. We cry, you and I, without self-reproach. Shall I say

nothing to him for you?”

“No, nothing.”

“Father----”

“Tell him--tell him to remember that he is the last of the

Roquevillards.”

He went out, passing by the castle and on into the country. It was

a fine winter’s day, with the sun shining on the snow. Mechanically

he took the Lyons road that led to La Vigie, his customary walk. It

led through the village of Cognin, and, beyond the sawmills near the

Saint Charles bridge, settled into a long defile between the Vimines

and Saint Cassin hills, spurs of the mountains of Lepine and Corbelet,

coming out at last by the pass of the Echelles. From this place on,

lost in his meditations, Mr. Roquevillard followed the rural path on

the left which was the way to La Vigie. He crossed the old bridge

thrown over the Hyères, now a thin stream of water between too icy

borders, the leafless poplars and willow trees no longer hiding it.

After a brief circuit he found himself in a fold of the deserted valley,

shut in by the slopes of Montagnole, whose bell-tower he could see

outlined against the sky. But he took no note of the solitude. On the

contrary, he walked more lightly, and was conscious of some lightening

of his sorrow, too. Was he not at home here, at home on either side?

And did not the good earth bring him the comfort of its old safe

friendship, of his childhood memories whose grace it cherished, of

all the human past which had remade it after nature finished? In this

vineyard on the left, with its shrouded vines--he could distinguish

the stakes and the wires that ran between them--he had always gathered

the grapes at autumn. On the right, beyond the stream which served as

common boundary between him and his neighbour, this dismantled hill,

with a single tree standing over it, had borne the woods of beeches

red and white, and the oaks, which he had bought with his savings to

enlarge his holdings and had ordered cut not long ago. At the top of

the ascent he would reach the old house that he had restored, its

very age testifying to the hardiness of his race and its taste for

solid things. He would enter by the farm, pat the children’s heads,

drink a little glass of brandy of his own distilling, with the farmer,

who did not object to alcohol; above all, his gaze would sweep the

whole horizon, where the storm-tossed mountain forms and fertile

plains, with a lake in the distance, made a composition of motionless and

inspiring lines; then the nearer horizon of La Vigie with its divers

tillages.

He walked briskly, lost thus in his thoughts. On this familiar soil

his steps had again their old brisk ring, as in the days when he had

felt like a young man despite his years, happily surrounded by those he

loved and confident in their love and life.

Suddenly he stopped.

“But I am no longer at home here,” he thought abruptly. “La Vigie is

sold. The Roquevillards are no longer masters there. What am I doing? I

must get out of this.”

And he turned in his path, his head bent low, like a tramp caught in an

orchard.

He stopped at the stream which separated Cognin from Saint Cassin. He

cleared it at a bound, and found himself this time on a piece of land

which had been outside the straight line of cultivation on the estate,

and had not been included in the bill of sale. It remained henceforth

his only landed property. At the foot of the slope he stopped a moment

to get his breath, like a company that comes upon some shelter in

retreat. Then he began to clamber up the slope, not without difficulty,

for he slipped and had to thrust his cane in the ground to hold his

balance. The path, faintly marked at best, ended by losing itself

altogether, and he made his way as well as he could in the direction of

the solitary tree that stood out clear against the sky on the summit.

It was an old oak, which had been spared, not for its age nor the fine

effect of its height and branches, but on account of a beginning of dry

rot that impaired its saleability. Its clinging leaves, all tightened

and shrivelled up after the manner of oaks, the better to defend

themselves against the wind, were loath even now to fall, their rusty

tints appearing here and there beneath the rime. Along the hillside the

tree trunks cut by the woodsmen, but not carted away before winter came

on, lay like corpses in the snow, some still clothed in their bark,

others already stripped.

Finally Mr. Roquevillard reached the point he had been making for. He

touched with his hand, as if it had been a friend, the tree that had

drawn him this far, admiring its grandeur and pride.

“You are like me,” he reflected, mopping his brow. “You have seen your

companions struck down, and are left alone. But we are condemned. Time

is the axe that will soon fell us.”

He had been a little retarded in climbing up the hill, and though the

afternoon was not far advanced, the sun was already declining toward

the Lepine chain. December days are so short, and the nearness of the

mountains cut them shorter still. From the hill he could see the same

view almost as from La Vigie: the Signal facing him, and below it the

receding valley of the Echelles; on the right, in the background,

beyond the plain, the lake of Bourget, the Revard range, and the

Nivolet with its regular gradations. The snow made the outlines less

distinct, blurring the foreground till the landscape was all soft and

uniform. Threats of evening tinted it a delicate rose, spreading over

all things the hue of living flesh.

In spite of the clear air, Mr. Roquevillard felt the cold, and buttoned

up his overcoat. Now that he was no longer warm from walking he

was again conscious of his age and sorrow. Why had he climbed this

hill? Its slope seemed to him like a cemetery, with its felled trees

scattered over the white ground. Did he come here, opposite the old

place abandoned now after the care of so many centuries, to gaze upon

its ruin and mourn the death of its hopes? Across the valley he could

distinguish the lands and buildings that had been his heritage. The

house, which only a year ago had sheltered all the reassembled, joyful

family, was closed now: never again should he pass its doors.

Silence and solitude were all round him on this funereal, leafless

hillock where he stood. About him, within him, it was Death. And

as a vanquished chief calls the roll of his soldiers after battle,

he summoned up his sorrows one by one: his wife’s life had been

crushed out, borne down by her troubles; his daughter Felicie given

up to God, far away over the seas and lost to him; Hubert, his

firstborn, his best boy, struck down in full youth, far from France

and all that were dear to him; Germaine, leaving her native country;

Margaret, vowed to celibacy by her poverty; and finally Maurice, the

last of the Roquevillards, on whom the future of the race depended,

thrown into prison upon an infamous charge; threatened with conviction

even though the paternal lands had been sacrificed to save him. In vain

had sixty years been given to the nurture of this family. Decimated,

crushed by the fault of a single member, it lay prone now at the foot

of La Vigie, like the trunks of these trees half bedded in the snow.

To him whose robust force and faith had looked for victory, defeat and

shame had been dealt out.

In his discouragement he leant against the oak, his brother in

misfortune. He gave a long, despairing groan, the groan of a tree which

totters beneath the raining blows of the axe before it falls. The

unheeding earth and sky were immobile in their quiet colours; he felt

himself abandoned.

Two tears rolled down his cheeks--a man’s tears, the more rare and

moving because they are a confession of humility and weakness, falling

slowly in the cold air, half frozen on his unwarmed cheeks. He did

not dream that he wept. He only realised it upon perceiving a human

form slowly climbing the hillside toward him. He dried his eyes, lest

he should be surprised in his sorrow. It was the figure of a woman

gathering dead wood and faggots. Bending over the white earth, she

could not see him; only when she got near the oak she straightened up a

little and recognised him.

“Master Francis!” she murmured.

“Mother Fauchois!” he exclaimed.

She came nearer, and put down her burden; searched for the

right thing to say, and finding nothing, began to weep, not silently,

but with loud sobs.

“Why do you cry?” asked Mr. Roquevillard.

“For you, Master Francis.”

“For me?”

“Yes.”

He had never confided his grief to any one; his pride and reserve kept

pity at a distance; but he accepted it from this poor old woman, and

gave her his hand. “You’ve heard of all my troubles?”

“Yes, Master Francis.”

“The last of them?”

“Yes--through a man from Saint Cassin, who came back from town this

morning.”

“Ah, I see.”

They were silent; then Mother Fauchois began her lamentations again in

a loud voice. It is not the way of the primitive to be silent in sorrow.

“Master Hubert, so gallant, so nice and young, so good to everybody! He

used to come into the kitchen and watch the dishes and laugh with us.

And madame--madame was one of the good God’s saints. They are the sort

you find in Paradise, Master Francis.”

Mr. Roquevillard stood motionless and silent, envying the dead who were

at rest. Mother Fauchois went prattling on again:

“And Master Maurice, they’ll give him back to you?

It’s to-morrow the trial comes off,” she added, quite

low, with her peasant’s dread of justice.

He saw her cross herself, praying for the Lord’s help for him, and

involuntarily he recalled her daughter who had been condemned for

theft. He inquired about her gently, for his tried soul was cleansed

now of all contempt or pride.

“And your daughter, have you good news from her?”

“She’s come back to me, Master Francis.”

“I’m glad of that.”

“Oh, she doesn’t deserve any credit for it. She had to. She came back

from Lyons quite sick. She doesn’t want to get well.”

“What’s the matter with her?”

“She was very sick after her baby was born.”

“A baby? Is she married?”

“No, Master Francis. But she has a baby. A little darling, very lively;

plays all day long. I wouldn’t look at the little angel at first, on

account of the disgrace, you understand. But when I saw it it gave one

little laugh and made my heart leap. Now it’s all the pleasure I have

left.”

“Is it a girl?”

“A girl? You’d say it was a boy, sure enough, a big boy, very plump.”

“It’s quite an expense for you.”

“For sure. But when I come home and see this urchin with his

bottle it makes me feel as good as a glass of your wine.

It makes life feel warm and pleasant again.”

“You’re pretty old to work now,” said Mr. Roquevillard.

“Exactly. I’m no good for anything else any more.”

Even from her wretchedness she could draw comfort, and misfortune

brought her a supreme interest for her last days. His mind was

distracted from his own trouble by her story, and he marvelled at the

courage of the poor woman, who, without knowing it, set him an example

of bravery and forgiveness. She stooped down to lift her bundle again

to her shoulders.

“Good-bye, Master Francis.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Cognin, to take my wood to the baker’s.”

“Wait a moment.”

He took out a five-franc piece, wanting to help her in her misfortunes,

but she would not accept it.

“Take it, I want you to,” he said.