“Master Francis,” she answered, “La Vigie doesn’t belong to you any

more, if what they say is true.”

The lawyer’s brow clouded over.

“No, La Vigie isn’t mine any more. Take the money just the same. It

will bring me luck.”

She saw that she was humiliating him by her refusal, and held out

her hand. Then she went on down the hillside, bending her knees

at each step to keep from slipping. He watched her figure growing

smaller in the distance, until it was no more than a dark spot against

the background of the valley. Her going left him alone again, but

changed. This poor old woman here had returned to him a hundredfold the

succour and strength that he had given her a year ago at the vintage

time.

While they had been talking together evening had come on. All nature,

motionless and as if congealed beneath the snow, submitted to the

solemn and mysterious calm that precedes the flight of day. The

outlines of the mountains melted more and more into the borders of the

pale sky. Not a sound broke the silence, more impressive in its aloof

stillness than the roaring of a storm.

At the foot of the hill the little stream slipped slyly by under a thin

bed of ice, where it had broken and reformed again. The earth, all of

an even hue, seemed shrouded in its whiteness, like a jewel wrapped in

cotton-wool.

Mr. Roquevillard fixed his gaze upon La Vigie, that closed and

deserted relic of the race that had possessed it. The prospect held

and fascinated him. Mother Fauchois had reawakened the instincts of

battle in him, had turned away despair from him. The head of the family

thrust sorrow from him, to think of the child that was now his charge

in life. He must seek some means of saving Maurice. But his yearning

gaze fell back blankly before this cruelly cold, clear emptiness of

space that was all around him: it gave back no message to him, no word

such as the spring or summer or even the autumn of life’s seasons might

have uttered to him. How should he defend his son with no weapons but

memories of the past? What help could he expect from this deserted

soil, this race that had gone down into the tomb? “One doesn’t argue

through the dead,” Mr. Battard had said to him on learning of Maurice’s

determination.

The sun, touching the line of the mountain ridge, shed its last glory.

On the mountain slopes the piledup snow seemed to kindle beneath its

fire and grow crimson, as if awakened from its lethargy. Last of all,

the still horizon line stirred beneath the light. Silent and immaculate

it yielded to the touch of life and gave it forth. The trembling earth

separated itself distinctly from the sky, whose pale blue spread into

a thousand tints under its dominant gold. Nearer by, the rime that

covered the trees and shrubs reflected the rays of the setting sun like

crystals that gather up in their tiny space the myriad lights of a

chandelier.

Mr. Roquevillard, his eye fixed on La Vigie, beheld this phenomenon

of the resurrection. For a few minutes nature lived again beneath the

caresses of the evening. Once more the blood coursed through its marble

face. Along the vines, on the summit of the hill, where the almost

horizontal beams of the sun struck more directly, the dispossessed

proprietor could make out now, instead of a piece of land uniform in

its whiteness, the distinguishing marks of the different places he had put

under cultivation; and behold, here and there were trees, tall poplars

standing calm and proud like palms, lindens with tapering branches,

thin birches, massive chestnuts, delicate fruit trees puny of limb yet

so expert in bearing their branches; trees, but just now nameless and

lost in mist, which seemed to him to surge forth again like living

beings.

And he was no longer conscious of being alone there, for he knew

names for these phantoms. With swelling breast he summoned up all the

successive generations that had cleared these lands, the hands that

built this mansion and these farm buildings, this rustic work, that

had laid the foundation of this domain, from the first shirt-sleeves

of the oldest peasant to the lawyer’s robes and the togas of the

senate of Savoy. The high plateau which spread before him was invested

like a fortress by the hosts of ancestors that had planted with their

wheat and rye and oats and orchards and vines in this corner of the

earth traditions of uprightness and honour, examples of courage and

nobility. And as the products of these their lands had scattered their

good repute abroad, so this tradition lighted up the city down there

within the circle of the mountains where the shadows were beginning to

fall upon it, and the province which it had served and protected and

even in certain moments of its history made illustrious; shed lustre

even upon their native land, whose power was made of the continuity and

hardihood of such breeds of men as they were. “One doesn’t argue

through the dead,” he repeated a second time. “With the dead, no; but

with the living, yes. They are there, all of them. Not one but will

answer to his name. The earth has opened up to let them pass. I will

overleap this valley that lies between us. I am going to join them.”

And he measured the already darkened hollow of the vale, as if these

phantoms all were massed there before him.

The shadows were laying hold of nature. Already all the plain belonged

to them. They rose. Only the mountains were still defiant, especially

the storeyed Nivolet that faced the setting sun and received all its

flame, glowing with the purple and violet snow like heated metal.

Stooping toward the foot of the hill, Mr. Roquevillard followed this

struggle. And all at once his whole being started. With the darkness

the shades were mounting, all the shades. They had left La Vigie,

they were coming. Just now he had seen them gathered there in the

valley’s depths. They were bringing him their presences, their help and

testimony. There were some of them on all the hillsides. It was as if

an army were rallying round their chief as he stood there at the foot

of the old oak. And when all the army was assembled, he could hear it

heralding a victory for him.

“We who have loved and laboured, fought and suffered, strove not for

our own selfish ends, not for a personal result achieved or missed by

any one of us, but for an end more permanent than that, an end beyond

ourselves, encompassing all the family. What we have saved thus for the

common fund we have given into your care to be handed on. It is not

La Vigie. Land can be gained by the sweat of one’s brow, bought with

money. The soul of our race you bear within you. We are confident that

you will defend it. What are you saying, in your despair, of solitude

and death? Will you render us your account and tell us whence you came?

From Death? But the family is the very negation of death. While you

live we all live. And when you shall join us in your turn, you will

live again, you must live again, in those that have been born of you.

See: at this deciding moment, we are all here. Put off your sorrow as

we have lifted up the stones from above our graves. For you, do you

hear, is reserved the honour of defending and saving the last of the

Roquevillards. You will speak in our name. Afterwards, when your tasks

are done, you can rejoin us here in the peace of God.”

Mr. Roquevillard put out his hand and supported himself against

the oak. The darkness was storming Le Nivolet, its last terrace,

with a cross upon it, flaming once more before it should go

out. A great calm settled on his soul, and he accepted in good

faith this mission laid upon him by the past.

“Maurice, your defender shall be no one but myself.... And I’ll not

mention the name of Mrs. Frasne.”

He moved away from the spot where the tree stood, noting the situation

as he left the place.

“I’ll rebuild here,” he thought, “I, or my son.”

V

MARGARET’S BETROTHAL

HUBERT’S death had completely upset Maurice, breaking at last the

pride that separated him from his family. Margaret, on her way home

from bearing the sad news to him in prison, walked through the streets

seeing nothing, shut up in her grief. At her own door she asked the

servant:

“Has Mr. Roquevillard come in yet?”

She was hastening to her father’s comfort now as she had gone to

Maurice’s, with that power of bearing up in moral sorrow which is

less exceptional in a woman than in a man, and permitted her to be of

comfort instead of breaking down.

“Not yet, Miss Margaret,” was the answer.

She was surprised, and began to be a little anxious.

“Not yet?”

And yet she had stayed a long time at the gaol, and evening was

coming on. Mr. Roquevillard had gone out only for a short walk. He

expected Mr. Hamel and Mr. Battard at five o’clock, to make the

last arrangements with them for to-morrow’s trial. His prolonged

absence under such circumstances was strange.

“But there is a gentleman in the drawing-room who asked to see you,”

the servant now added.

“To see me?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Who is it?”

“He told me his name, but I don’t remember it. A doctor.”

She was a girl from the country, not yet quite used to her new ways,

and unfamiliar with the names and faces of the town’s people.

“You ought not to have let him in, Melanie,” said Margaret

reproachfully. “To-day of all days.”

“That’s right, miss, I thought so, too. But he would not go away. He

brought a message for you.”

Margaret went into the drawing-room against her will, keeping on her

hat and mourning veil as a hint to the importunate visitor to depart.

She found herself face to face with Raymond Bercy.

“Miss Roquevillard,” he murmured, as much overcome as she was.

She recoiled from him instinctively, and he espied the movement, and

with an entreating voice he tried to make her stay.

“Miss Margaret, forgive me for having come. I learned last night of

your sorrow. Then----”

“Mr. Bercy,” she said, coming forward.

This one formal phrase, firmly uttered, kept him at a

distance, seemed to deny him the right to plead. Like her father,

she deprecated pity. The man who had been betrothed to her bent his

head, disconcerted, and kept silent.

“Why did you insist upon seeing me, sir, to-day?” she said again more

gently.

He raised his eyes to her, with an imploring and humble look.

“Because to-morrow it would have been too late,” he sighed.

“Too late? To-morrow? You’ve something to tell me? Is it about Maurice?”

She forgot herself, in an instant, never dreaming that the matter

could concern her. Had not all ties between herself and Raymond

Bercy been broken off for more than a year? Were they not broken

that day when he had not hesitated, in his mother’s house, to break

his engagement to her and save the honour of his name? The young man

had made no attempt to recapture her affection or her promise to

him. Developments had broken on them like a tempest: the accusation

by Mr. Frasne, Mrs. Roquevillard’s death, Maurice’s sentence for

contempt, the shame and ruin of the family that resulted from it,

and, last cruelty of all, the loss of the firstborn son, their future

hope and stay. It was more than enough to justify one’s giving up,

keeping away from people, forgetting. Was it not the privilege

of unhappiness to hide itself? She had enjoyed her tears and her

affliction by herself. She had jealously extracted the very essence

of her grief, not sharing it with any one. By what right did this

man come here again to impose his useless presence and his futile

sympathy upon her? But no doubt something else had determined him

upon this measure. Perhaps he knew something that would be of value

in the defence of her accused brother. On such a pretext, and on this

only, she could excuse him for having forced the guards and introduced

himself into the house.

He made, no haste to explain himself. He was visibly under the dominion

of some great inner trouble.

“Tell me your business, please,” she said.

“It’s nothing to do with Maurice,” he replied blankly.

“What is it then?”

She made a step toward him, and threw back the veil, which had

embarrassed her movements and half concealed her. Coming to him thus,

straight and rigid, she seemed to him more distant still. Her face,

between the black of her dress and her bonnet, stood out so pale, with

bruised eyes and lips like a single red line, that he felt her far away

from him and sorrowful. He feared lest he should not move her, yet he

was greedy to bring her the comfort of his passionate tenderness. He

kept back his tears, and summoning all his courage, began to speak,

stammering at first, then going on in a voice which little by little

grew more firm:

“Miss Roquevillard, listen to me. You must listen. Then

you can understand and forgive me. I must speak to you,

and speak to-day. I respect your grief. I feel it with you. I have

suffered, too, myself, ever since the day.... And my suffering has

made me understand others better. I loved you. Oh, don’t stop me! Let

me finish. Yes, I loved you. I could not see any future for myself

except with you. But I encountered so much opposition at home, so many

obstacles, on account--on account of your brother. My mother, who is

so good at heart, gives in to every prejudice. My father was set on my

career. He is a man of science only. He lives in his office, or rather

with his sick people. He’s not the ruler of his house. And I--oh, no, I

don’t want to go on accusing other people to excuse my fault. I’ve been

a coward, an abominable coward. But I have been well punished for it. I

haven’t stood up for you--I haven’t known how to defend you.”

She had attempted at several points to interrupt him with a gesture.

Erect again and unconsciously disdainful, she looked him in the face.

In her action she showed the haughty air that came naturally to the

Roquevillards and had won them so many enemies. But it was mitigated by

the veiled melancholy in her eyes, and the mystic expression that came

to her from her mother.

“I have not asked you to defend me,” she replied, simply.

“That’s true, Margaret....”

He gave up formality in his emotion, speaking to her as he had

used to do in the time when they had been betrothed.

“I even wanted you to despise me,” he added.

“I don’t despise any one, sir.”

“You wounded me so, just in looking at me, that day when you gave me

back my promise. You have been so hard....”

“I, hard?”

She pronounced the two words almost in a whisper, deeming all reply

useless, inwardly revolted by such injustice.

“Yes,” he replied. “I never understood before that it was right to be

proud in misfortune. And I cursed you, but my heart was broken. And I

accused you, instead of avowing the wretchedness of my doubts and my

mean caring for what people thought. I have changed greatly, I swear

to you. And now I admire you, I revere you, adore you. Yes. Don’t say

anything. Let me finish. I have tried to forget you. My parents would

have had me marry some one else, to have me settle down, as they said.

I couldn’t. I love only you, and always shall.”

“I beg of you, sir.”

“What little good I can do, you are the cause of. Little by little

I shall raise myself to your level. Men like me, all men, hover

between good and evil, between devotion and selfishness. They don’t

reflect, they are carried away by all the mediocrity of life.

But sometimes one impulse is enough to lift them out of themselves.

Your love has given me that impulse, Margaret.”

He stopped, waiting for a word of hope. She lowered her eyes, and

the veil, which she no longer held back, fell down to her shoulder,

throwing a little shadow on one side of her face. He murmured like a

prayer:

“Margaret, take back what you’ve said. Consent to be my wife. I love

you. For all your sorrow I love you all the more.”

He saw a shudder run all through her.

“It’s impossible. Don’t ask me that,” she replied unhesitatingly.

Dismayed by this refusal, when a remnant of vanity in him still

persuaded him that the course he took was generous, he cried out in

distress:

“My life’s happiness, and I’m not to ask you for it?”

She moved nearer to him, and her voice took on a new sweetness as she

said to him:

“Another wife will give you this happiness. I’m sure of it. I want it

for you.”

“There’s no other woman but you in my eyes.”

“No, no, it’s impossible. Don’t torment me.”

“Impossible? Why, Margaret? Why discourage me? You don’t love me?

One day perhaps I shall know how to make you love me. You shake your

head? Good God, Margaret, will you send me away without a reason?”

She seemed to search for an answer, and hesitated; then found a way

round the difficulty. He watched anxiously for what she should say.

“I’m not the same girl I was last year,” she began.

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve no dot any more.”

“Is that it? Margaret, I don’t deserve to have you treat me like this.

There’s something in you, in your eyes, like a radiant flame of life.

When I look at you I feel courage in me, a desire for good, and a

disdain for all the petty satisfactions that material things can give.

Beside this, this faith that you give me, which will be my strength,

what is money?”

“And if to-morrow----”

As she did not go on with the phrase he repeated:

“If to-morrow?”

“If a still greater misfortune awaits us to-morrow, if to-morrow my

brother Maurice is declared guilty?”

“I came to-day on account of that danger. I wanted to claim the honour

of supporting your father to-morrow at the trial like a son. I had to

see you to-day.”

“Ah!” she murmured, thunderstruck.

He could see from the tone of this simple exclamation that all the

indifference she had shown him was falling away at last. On her

pale face, whose every expression he had followed, he distinguished

suddenly sympathy and gratitude, perhaps something further still.

Happiness was there--uncertain, clouded, but still there. And its

presence stirred his heart.

Margaret fortified him in this hope by holding out her hand to him.

“I thank you, Raymond,” she said, not afraid to call him by his name as

she used to do. “I am touched, deeply touched.”

They were not quite the words he had expected from her. He watched her

in an anxious ecstasy, entreatingly. As she kept silent, he murmured

timidly:

“Why thank me, when I love you? It seems to me that loving you is worth

more than---- Margaret, will you really be my wife?” he added, like a

sigh.

There were compassion and sorrow in her beautiful pale face as she

answered:

“Raymond, I can’t.”

“You can’t? Then--then you are in love with some one else?”

“Ah, my friend!”

“Yes, you are in love with some one else. Some one who has not been

a coward like me, who has known how to divine your thoughts, to

understand you, to be worthy of you, while I--well, I have lost my

happiness by my own fault. It’s just, but it means unhappiness to one

who loves you.”

He stopped and gave a heavy sob.

“Raymond,” she said, trembling, “I beg of you. Don’t talk like this.”

“I don’t accuse you. I’m the guilty one. And your happiness is dearer

to me than my own.”

“Raymond, listen to me.”

He was beaten, and with sinking heart he let himself fall heavily

into an armchair, hiding his head in his hands, heedless of the show

of weakness he made with his tears. She took off her hat with a rapid

movement, as a sick-nurse puts off unnecessary garments the better

to do her work, and taking hold of his hands, she pulled them aside

masterfully.

“Look at me, Raymond.”

She gave her commands, not imperiously, after the fashion of her

father, but with persuasive sweetness. She was not constrained

any more, no longer assumed the defensive, but came to him in all

simplicity. Mechanically he submitted to her ascendancy, and obeyed

her. The moment he looked at her, indeed, he ceased to weep. The girl

appeared as if transfigured. A look of ecstasy lighted up her pallor.

Her eyes glowed with an expression more than human, the expression of

those who find peace beyond the agitations and passions that are the

moving testimony of our life. She bore in her living features the same

serenity that one sees on the faces of the dead that are asleep with

God. There was no further trace of sorrow on her bloodless cheeks, or

in her bruised eyes, only a deep calm, unalterable, almost frightening.

“Margaret, what is it?” he implored in anguish, like one who

cries out to a comrade upon the brink of an abyss.

“Raymond, listen to me,” she repeated. “Yes, I love some one else.”

“Ah, I knew it!”

“Another, of whom you cannot be jealous. I shall never marry. I shall

never be the wife of any one. I shall take another path. And yet I am

so imperfect that just now when you were speaking to me, I was guilty

of a feeling of pride. I am proud still. It is a fault of my people.

But we have been so tried, we truly have had to grow a little stiff.”

A frail smile outlined itself at the corner of her mouth, then

disappeared, as if to leave the purity of her motionless features

undisturbed. She went on, while he said nothing, subdued by the

mysterious potency that spread around her:

“No, I shall not forget that you have chosen the hour of my greatest

distress to come to me.”

He mourned over her like a child. “I love you.”

“I must not love any more, Raymond. I have heard another call than

yours. I’m going to tell you a secret that no one knows, not even my

father. I don’t hesitate to tell it to you. Keep it for me. When I lost

my mother I promised God to take her place in our home that has been so

ravaged by misfortune.”

“Haven’t you done that?”

“I’m not through yet.”

“Will marriage prevent your filling that rôle?

We shall not leave Chambéry.”

“You can’t give only half of yourself, Raymond. I have renounced my

personal happiness. And from the day I renounced it I have felt a great

force in me.”

He gave a violent start, in protest.

“But there’s no sense in it, Margaret. You have no right to deny

yourself like this. You will live after your father’s gone. Your

brother when he’s acquitted to-morrow will lead his own life, apart

from you. And you, what will become of you all alone? What’s the use of

sacrificing yourself for needless scruples?”

“My father has been smitten to the heart. My brother is always in

danger. Don’t take away any of my courage by telling me I shall not be

useful to them.”

Raymond gave in and ceased to struggle. He felt warned intuitively of

his defeat, from the look in Margaret’s eyes still more than from her

words, yet he tried to put off the moment of defeat. With a timid and

softened voice he begged her for a delay.

“And if I wait for you, will you marry me?” he said. “If I remain

faithful to you until the time when you have fulfilled your task for

your family, will you come to me? I love you so much that rather than

lose you I shall know how to be patient. It will be cruel and sweet

together. Won’t you, Margaret?”

The girl’s eyes clouded a moment at this romantic and

heroic proposal. He saw she was more human, and he believed

she was yielding to him. He conceived a new hope from it, which her

reply dissipated with its first words.

“No, Raymond, I shan’t consent to build my future on your sorrow. It’s

impossible. You have not understood me entirely. I have given myself to

God. Don’t try to take me back.”

“Ah, Margaret!”

“To give myself to God is to give myself to all those that suffer.”

“I understand now. You want to join some religious order.”

“I don’t know yet. There are very many ways of serving God. Don’t tell

any one yet what I’ve told you. You’re crying. Don’t cry, Raymond. God

will console you, as he has consoled me.”

“No, not me.”

And between two sobs he asked her:

“What are you going to do?”

“As long as my father lives I shall help him. As long as Maurice needs

me I shall stand by him. At my mother’s death-bed I promised that.

Afterwards I’ll devote my strength to the unfortunate, to the old, or

maybe to children that have lost their parents. Perhaps I’ll keep a

school here for little poor children. I don’t know. I can’t tell now.

I mustn’t try to hurry up the future. It will come of itself. You see,

now you know all my secrets.”

“And I,” he murmured, “what will become of me? You’re thinking

of comforting all wretchedness and you forget mine.”

“Raymond!”

“I am more unhappy than the poorest people there are. They at least

have had no glimpse of happiness, but I have, and am cast down after

having known joy.”

“No, Raymond, you must have no regrets for me. I was not meant for

marriage. God has warned me of it, though it’s been a little hard. For

you he has another wife in store, no doubt, who will make you happier

than I could.”

“You’re like no other woman, Margaret. You’re not the kind one forgets.

You’re not the kind one can replace.”

Darkness was coming into the drawing-room with the waning day, and in

the shadow, where the outlines of her black dress were dimmed, the

girl’s face shone forth like a last remnant of the light, a light which

scarcely animated her pale features. It was as if in touching her cheek

one should fear to feel, instead of living warmth, the chill of marble

in them.

‘Yes,“ she said, ”you will forget me. You must, and besides, I wish

it.”

He looked at her in dismay, like a traveller who beholds from afar the

summit that he cannot reach.

“You can’t control my memories,” he said.

“Then remember me without bitter thoughts, as if

I were a sister that you had lost.”

“No, Margaret, not without bitterness. You lifted up my thoughts,

elevated my heart. They will only fall back now.”

She was moved by this speech, and it was with a grave and almost solemn

tone that she responded:

“If you loved me, if you truly loved me, you would give me the supreme

joy of thinking that my vocation was not to be useless, for you no

less than for others. You can’t be cast down forever over my refusal:

it doesn’t really touch you. It can neither wound you nor take from

you. My memory ought to be sweet to you, and not spoil your life. For

I have loved you, Raymond, my friend. I looked forward contentedly

to our wedding-day, and content is the confidence of the soul, our

security for the future. An unexpected upheaval has separated us. I’ve

seen God’s summons in it. If it is not His will that I should bring you

happiness, if He has tested you in your turn, let me believe that this

very trial will make you strong, make you grow, and ennoble you. If I,

imperfect as I am, have served to elevate you, don’t tell me that you

are going to slip back. I shall pray so hard for you.”

She was absorbed in her entreaty, and did not notice that he had slowly

bent his knee before her, till suddenly she felt the young man’s lips

pressed to her hand.

“What are you doing, Raymond? Get up, I beg of you,” she cried.

She saw him there at her feet and was surprised by this new

resolution that he revealed to her. His face seemed no longer tortured

and sorrowful, only serious and sad. He had succumbed in spite of

himself to the stern and peaceful influence of her faith--that faith

which is more potent even over others than ourselves.

“I was not worthy of you,” he murmured. “But I loved you so. No man is

worthy of you. That is my consolation,” he added, as he rose, paying

her this last homage.

She turned her head as if to put away such praise.

“No, dear friend, you mustn’t talk any more to me like this.”

The completion of the sacrifice was attained. They felt its poignancy

with an almost physical sensation, and were hushed. An oppressive

stillness followed, charged with melancholy. In the midst of it the

maid came into the room, which had now grown quite dark. She had some

trouble to see where her mistress was, her shadow was so merged in the

darkness.

“Miss Margaret,” she said.

“What is it, Melanie?”

“Those gentlemen have come.”

“Oh! Did you show them into the office?”

“Yes, miss.”

“And Mr. Roquevillard has not come in yet?”

“No, miss.”

“Ask them to wait a few minutes. Mr. Roquevillard will be back soon.”

The delay was becoming disquieting, however, to Margaret. Raymond

Bercy was conscious of the fact that the girl’s thoughts were far from

him.

“Already!” he thought.

Just now, at least, when she had gently put away his love, he had had

a place in her thoughts and heart. Even the sorrow that she caused him

brought him nearer to her, was dear because it came from her. He looked

at her a last time, with despairing eyes, as if to measure the whole

extent of his loss, and leave its impress on his memory. And realising

that this was the end, he murmured:

“Good-bye, Margaret.”

She held out her hand to him.

“Good-bye, dear friend. Go in peace. In my prayers each day I’ll join

your name with my family’s. Do you want me to?”

“I am grateful, Margaret. I had conceived a great hope, and I have

shattered it myself.”

“God willed it, and not you. May God guard you,” she answered gravely.

He bent his head and went out. When she found herself alone she leaned

her forehead on her hands a moment, then straightened up again. Then

she went to her father’s office, and begged Mr. Hamel and Mr. Battard

to be patient a few minutes longer. Finally, as anxiety swayed her more

and more, and she was even getting ready to go out and search, she

heard the key grating in the outer lock. She hurried toward the door.

“Father, it’s you at last,” she cried.

Mr. Roquevillard, who had walked fast, wiped away the perspiration that

gathered on his forehead despite the cold.

“Margaret, have those gentlemen come?” he asked.

“Yes. They’re waiting for you.”

“Good. I’ll go and see them.”

In the lighted hall father and daughter found themselves face to

face and were surprised at the change each noted in the other.

From having left each other morally discouraged and fagged out,

they were surprised now, each of them, to find on the other’s face

a sort of victorious serenity over fear and sorrow, a spiritual

illumination that made them firm and confident. The father had heard

the call of the past rising to him from the depths of the eternal

generations. The daughter had heard the voice of God.

VI

THE DEFENDER

MR. ROQUEVILLARD burst into his office like a whirlwind, and

his two colleagues rose from their discussion immediately and came

forward to meet him. They could not conceal their surprise on finding,

instead of a man struck down by despair over the death of his oldest

son, the Roquevillard of other times, the man so redoubtable at the

bar, to whom one went with difficult and stirring cases, on whose clear

judgment and firm conclusions one could always depend. Here again was

the man whose dominating character one chafed under sometimes as one

quailed before his piercing glance.

“I have made you wait,” he said easily, dispensing with excuses.

In his presence, Mr. Hamel, with his crown of white hair, his

delicate features, and the slightly affected and distinguished

air that composed his venerable whole, and Mr. Battard, with his

spreading beard, his air of assuming everywhere the first rank,

seemed, nevertheless, both to recognise their leader; one with

good will, the other grudgingly. All assumptions of superiority

fell away before these other and more incontestable tokens.

“My good friend,” murmured the elder man, his hand stretched out.

“My dear colleague,” was the formula of the younger.

They conveyed their condolences to him, one cordially and with emotion,

the other in trite phrases.

“Yes,” replied their host, stopping them with a motion of his hand, “I

have only one son left. That one I am going to save. I must save him;

and here’s the plan I have decided on.”

This last consultation had been called by the three lawyers to check up

some definite plan of defence together, and lo, the opinion of a single

one was prevailing in advance, without other consultation.

“Ah!” exclaimed the president, subdued by so much confidence and

firmness.

“Decided?” repeated Mr. Battard with an air of doubt, divided between

respect for his friend’s mourning and a sense of his own importance.

Mr. Roquevillard disclosed his idea promptly, in few words; he was very

quiet, and his voice had grown young again.

“You two will assist me, both of you. But I shall make the argument

myself,” he said.

“You!”

“You!”

Astonishment and irritation were reflected in the two

exclamations. Mr. Hamel looked at his old companion in arms with

his colourless eyes, the flame of life now no more than a trembling

light in them, though it was still so pure; while the jury lawyer,

unpleasantly affected by his dismissal from a case that would have

given him a sensational chance for resounding argument, forgot the

circumstances of the trial, and the misfortunes of the temporarily

beaten family, and could think only of the opportunity for personal

success that was ruthlessly snatched from him.

“Yes, I,” said Mr. Roquevillard. “I shall reclaim my son so

energetically that they’ll give him back to me. They can’t refuse to

give a father back his son.”

Having thus dictated his orders for the combat, he exerted himself next

to bring round his allies to his way of thinking, for he could, if he

liked, modify his imperious manner, and was not without skill in the

art of leading men. He was certain of the assistance of the president,

and so he turned his attention specially to Mr. Battard, who might

escape him.

“You will be there, both of you, please. I count on you. If I ask to

take your place, Battard, it isn’t because I rank my skill above yours.

But there are certain things which it is my sad privilege alone to

explain to the jury.”

“What things?”

“That’s my secret. You’ll hear it all to-morrow. I believe I can

convince the jury of my son’s innocence without mentioning the name of

Mrs. Frasne.”

“By making reparation for the injury?”

“No, by direct argument.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ll see to-morrow. However, if you detect any weakening in my voice

or argument, if my speech makes you fear a failure, you must tell me.

I submit myself entirely to your great experience in jury trials. You

have wonderful presence of mind. These judges’ faces are an open book

to you. You know the brief as well as I, or better than I do. You were

ready with it. You can supplement my efforts. I shall feel myself

strong, thus supported. Will you be so kind?”

The dismissed lawyer stroked his beard carefully, and hid his vexation

beneath an air of indifference.

“My dear brother, what is the use?” he said. “My cooperation would

be useless to you. You don’t really need anybody but yourself.

You’re assuming without hesitation the highest and most difficult

responsibilities. Permit me to consider my mission terminated.”

The two lawyers, during this interchange, had remained standing. Mr.

Hamel, seated by the chimney corner, followed them with somewhat

troubled eyes, taking no part in their discussion. Mr. Roquevillard

moved a step nearer to his younger colleague, and put his hand

affectionately on his shoulder.

“I know that I’m asking a great favour of you, Battard. In claiming

the honour of defending my son myself, I want you to understand that

it’s my name I count upon defending. I don’t undervalue the help your

worth and competence and eloquence would have been to me. But in my

place you would do the same as I. Give me this token of your friendship

and disinterestedness, as well as your esteem. In that way you’ll show

me that you take what I’m saying in good faith, I beg you.”

Mr. Battard kept running his nervous fingers through his fine beard.

He was weighing the pros and cons, swayed in turn by fraternal and

professional traditions, and by a wounded vanity that ill accommodated

itself to second place. He had almost imposed his assistance and

services on the defence. He counted, if not on his client’s being

saved, at least on a personal triumph for himself: the court-room

would be filled to overflowing, chiefly with ladies, who would be

keen to hear him, no doubt. Instead of beholding him in his glory,

holding forth as a leader, this select public would find him seated

like a secretary at Roquevillard’s side, subservient to that dangerous

rival who had dealt him so many hard legal knocks in the past. Was it

becoming in him to accept so humiliating a position? On the other hand,

his presence would not be useless in the trial. The prisoner’s father

had probably been seized by some fine sudden zeal, had deluded himself

probably with some sudden turn of argument that fascinated him. He

dared not tell the secret of it, and perhaps he had conceived it under

the influence of a grief that was beginning to affect his moral and

intellectual vigour. This fictitious ardour that animated him might

fall flat at any moment, without any warning, and be followed by the most

lamentable depression. How could this man, crushed as he was by

ruinous ill luck, deprived so tragically of his eldest son only last

night, bear all the burden of defending his last child from disgrace

and conviction? How could he expect or hope to make the vigorous, the

violent effort demanded by such an argument, and after so short a

preparation? It wasn’t probable that he could. This new decision must

be explained as coming from some mystic excitement arising from his

sorrow. He, Battard, must hold himself in readiness to take up the

case at the last moment. Wisdom counselled it. The interests of the

defence, which, with a lawyer, must supersede all others, especially

all thoughts of self, showed what conduct he must follow, beyond any

question.

But the strange confidence which Roquevillard showed in his face halted

these generous fancies.

“No,” explained Mr. Battard, “I can’t oblige you in this way. I’m sorry

for it. Either I assume and keep the entire responsibility of the

argument, or I retire from the case altogether.”

“It’s my son’s case. It’s right that I should not give up his defence.”

Mr. Hamel rose from his armchair, and intervened opportunely.

“In my capacity as president of the benchers, my dear

brother, I hasten to request your assistance. I understand

your hesitations. In any other circumstances I should

understand your refusal. Mr. Roquevillard may have particular reasons

for desiring to make the argument for his son, even though generally

the case of defending one’s own is confided to others. But he is tried

and tired with the weight of his misfortunes, and he runs the risk of

presuming too much upon his force of will. You must be on hand, too.

This is the way things look to me, and I insist upon it.”

The moment duty instead of flattery was invoked, authority instead of

persuasion, the jury lawyer definitely threw aside his scruples. All

his self-assurance came back to him, and he thrust the old man aside

almost rudely.

“No, no; it’s impossible. I offered my complete assistance. It must be

that or nothing. The plans of the defence have been changed without

my being consulted. A line of argument that seems to be decisive is

being hidden from me. In these conditions the only thing I can do is to

retire from the case, and I retire.”

His hardened face showed only wounded pride. He turned toward Mr.

Roquevillard, and added with laborious condescension:

“Do you want the notes to my argument? They will save you some trouble.

They are at your service.”

“My dear colleague and friend, think it over further.

Don’t leave us in the midst of battle.”

“My resolution is taken,” repeated Mr. Battard.

“Absolutely?”

“Absolutely.”

Throughout this last attempt on Mr. Hamel’s part, Mr. Roquevillard had

maintained that same air of pride and tranquillity which just now had

so disconcerted his two visitors. The president, more concerned than he

over the consequences of this defection, still sought, in spite of his

natural antipathy for Mr. Battard, to retain his help.

“I beg you not to deprive us of your aid,” he said.

“I am very sorry, indeed, to disappoint you, believe me,” answered

Battard.

“Then,” said the father of the accused, deliberately and without any

show of emotion, “I’ll ask you for the papers in the case. I want

especially the written report of the police commissioner, the abstract

of the deposition, the terms of the arrest for defalcation.”

This disinvestiture completed the offence to Mr. Battard’s pride.

He did not know how to yield to entreaties, but by a very human

contradiction neither did he resign himself gracefully to having

people supersede him. He took leave of his two colleagues with

badly disguised irritation. Outside the office, on the steps

of the entrance door, his host got hold of his hand almost by

force, and shook it, thanking him warmly for having consented to

efface himself. But in this friendly demonstration Mr. Battard

only saw the last affront of all, and he ran about town injuring

the Roquevillards’ cause in the public mind by telling people of the

father’s mental aberration, and the probable conviction of the son

to-morrow.

Mr. Hamel could not dissemble his sadness at the departure; his doubts

and anxiety, which his age made more grievous, appeared plainly. Was it

not very imprudent to dismiss wilfully this pastmaster of the assizes?

Were they not only too likely to pay for this imprudence? Why make this

eleventh-hour change, and stir up trouble and disorganisation in their

camp? He formulated these criticisms in a firm and courteous vein, but

plainly they were superfluous. He put an end to them, and added on a

melancholy note:

“My friend, you came in just now with your face illuminated, as if with

some inner inspiration. I knew by looking at you that you would not

listen to any one. Where had you been?”

“To La Vigie,” replied Mr. Roquevillard, who had borne the old man’s

reproaches respectfully. “The dead spoke to me there. They did not

want a charlatan to weigh their reputation against the faults of one

descendant.”

“The dead?”

“Yes, my dead. The dead who founded my race, the dead who

have maintained it. They shall be the guerdon of our house

in to-morrow’s trial. From the first of my name, down to my

firstborn Hubert, they have sacrificed so much in the common

good; would you have their sacrifices not counted?”

Mr. Hamel reflected, then rose. “I believe in the law of reversion, and

I understand. But will the jurors?”

“Indeed they must,” replied his host, with such assurance that the old

man’s doubts were stilled by it.

“Something is working out in you,” he said, “and it acts on those

you talk with and convinces them. Yes, your defence of your son will

be better than that of any other advocate. You have the will and

the authority. It will be an honour for me to assist you to-morrow.

Good-bye. I will go now and let you work.”

He draped his shabby overcoat over his thin shoulders, and with a

suddenly furtive air made for the door, his host following him.

“Margaret!” called Mr. Roquevillard, after having let the president out.

The girl was waiting in the next room for the moment when her father

should be ready for her, and appeared at once.

“Here I am.”

“Come in. I want to talk with you.”

He led her into his study and questioned her rapidly.

“You went to see Maurice in prison?”

“Yes, father; we cried together.”

“Cried? Yes, my heart is broken, too. Yet I don’t cry. To-morrow night

I shall be free to weep my fill; till then I shall not shed a tear.”

Margaret was a little frightened by the uplifted look that

lightened and rejuvenated the dear face, on which she had seen so many

disasters leave their mark; but she profited by it promptly to complete

her work of reconciliation.

“Father, Maurice longs for his place again in your heart.”

“He has never lost it.”

“I knew it. Do you forgive him?”

“I forgave him a long time ago.”

“Ah!”

“The evening he came back, little girl. Did you doubt your father?”

“Oh, no, father. But why not say so to him?”

“He hasn’t asked me to.”

“He does ask you, though. He wants you to handle his defence on your

own lines, without restrictions. He knows you will be careful of his

honour.”

“Without restriction? It’s too late now.”

“Why too late?”

“Because I have dismissed Mr. Battard, his advocate.”

“Who will defend him?”

“I.”

“Ah,” said Margaret, throwing herself into his arms, “I had given up

hope of that. I have always wanted it.”

And her father, already preoccupied as he was with his

new and pressing task, folded her to his breast. “You

have always had faith in me, little girl. Go fetch me all the

family record books now, even the oldest ones.”

While she was gone there was delivered to him the brief sent back by

Mr. Battard, according to his promise. He opened it and turned over the

leaves, glancing at the clock as he did so.

“Almost six. Shall I have the time?”

And he reflected sadly on the long task ahead of him with the

commonplace books. There were so many that Margaret had to make several

journeys to get them all.

“Here they all are,” said the girl. “There are a great many of them,

and some quite old ones.”

Five hundred years of labour and good repute were shut up within their

leaves. Last of all she handed her father a memorandum book less

voluminous than the others.

“In this one,” she explained, blushing a little, “I have summed up

myself the principal features of our history, especially the services

that have been rendered to our country. It’s a kind of abridgment in

less intimate terms.”

“You guessed that we should need it some day?”

“No, father, I wrote it last winter, in revolt against the harsh

judgments that were made on us. I read bits of it to mamma, while she

was in bed, and she approved of it.”

“And all the time you were preparing a defence for Maurice.”

“With that, father?”

“Yes. Now, let me get to work.”

Then as she was going away he called her back.

“Margaret, I’ve something else to tell you.”

She came back to him quickly. He said nothing at first, but looked her

all over with that father’s look that gives love instead of taking

it, protects instead of being covetous; he was noticing not only her

pallor, but the calmness of her features and the new sweet serenity of

their expression.

“I passed Raymond Bercy as I came in, little girl. He was down there

by the carriage entrance, standing perfectly still, and I could see

that he was much moved and preoccupied. He bowed to me, and made a step

toward me, as if to speak to me, but it was too late. I had already

passed him.”

Margaret did not seem at all impressed by this news, and answered:

“He had been here, and was just going away, father.”

“I see. And what did he want?”

“He wanted to be with you to-morrow at the trial, and help you.”

“What an idea! In what way could he help?”

“As a son.”

“As a son? Then he had made a proposal to you?”

“Yes, father.”

“And you were not going to tell me about it? God has

taken pity on us. Our excess of misfortune has touched

Him. Raymond’s conduct is very fine. He hasn’t waited for

us to be publicly cleared of all disgrace before he came to us. And

what did you say to him?”

“I refused him.”

Mr. Roquevillard gave an astonished movement and drew the girl nearer

to him, looking deep into her great clear eyes.

“Refused him? Why? But I can guess: you were thinking of me. You

are sacrificing yourself for your father. Your father won’t accept

the sacrifice, sweetheart. I have told you often that parents must

subordinate their lives to their children’s: that’s the natural order,

not the contrary.”

“Father,” she murmured, “I love you so well. You know it. However, you

deceive yourself, I assure you.”

“It was not for me you refused him?”

“No, father.”

A pure flame radiated from her eyes over all her colourless face, and

he understood his daughter’s soul. Had he not once already had to

read these signs? God was taking his children from him one by one.

What a fever of renunciation and self-immolation stirred and burned

in them! Must there not be in these successive sacrifices enough to

furnish the redemption of the culprit, Maurice? He recalled one summer

morning, in the glaring light on the docks at Marseilles, when he

had watched the steamer sail away for China with Felicie on board.

And he pressed Margaret closer to his trembling heart.

“You, too,” he murmured simply.

She clasped her arms around his neck, and whispered to him, quite low,

with a kiss:

“Not yet, father.”

“After I am gone?”

“Yes.”

He held her a moment closer against him, as he had done when she was a

little girl in the old days and he had put protecting arms about her.

He loved the feeling that she was his yet, but hesitated to accept

the delay his daughter’s love imposed on her. Facing the glass in his

cabinet, he could see the image of the group they formed. With one

stroke it showed the changes that had been wrought in him within one

year’s time.

“To-morrow,” he reflected, “I shall have saved Maurice, and my task

will be finished. It won’t be long after that. I shan’t make old bones.”

Bending over the clear face, he pressed his lips there, as a sign of

his acceptance. Then, coming back again to what was uppermost in his

mind, he banished tenderness, and made his arrangements for the battle.

“Have dinner at eight,” he ordered. “I’ve almost two hours ahead

of me, time to refresh myself on the details of this brief,

which I know pretty well already. I’ll go to bed at nine, and

get up at three in the morning. From three to nine, before the

opening of court, I’ll get my argument in hand.”

“Very well, father. There’s a letter from Lyons from Germaine. Her

heart is with us.”

“You can read it to me at dinner,” he said.

“Charles will be here to-morrow on the one-o’clock train. He can’t come

sooner.”

“I expected him.”

“I’ll leave you now, father.”

As the door shut upon her, he seized eagerly a photograph of Hubert

that stood on the table, and gazed long at the features of his

firstborn.

“Forgive me, Hubert,” he said deep down in his heart, “I’m thinking

only of your brother now. You must not think that I’ve forgotten you.

You see, I am not free. To-morrow I’ll call to you and speak to you and

weep for you. To-morrow I shall be yours. This evening I belong to all

our race.”

Gently he set the picture down again. And putting aside his sorrow

for the immediate necessities of the present, he began his work.

VII

JEANNE SASSENAY

AT the trial, in obedience to her father’s instructions, Margaret

Roquevillard gave evidence, under the head of information, as to the

money from her trousseau funds which she had lent to Maurice the

evening of his departure for Italy, as well as what she had sent to

him at Orta. Her testimony over, she had gone home in all haste, as if

the fuss made about her generosity filled her with shame. In a feeble

way she was to have been of use in the defence of Maurice, and she

reproached herself with having shown so much weakness, with having

replied so timidly to the interrogations of the presiding judge. Her

courage was of the inner kind, and ill adjusted itself to public show.

She deplored her modesty now, for to herself it seemed like cowardice,

and she was afraid of having impaired the force of her statements by

the hesitating way in which she made them.

What had taken place in the court-room before she was led

in and after her flight? She could not have told anything

about it; she was only conscious of an invincible fear

from her first brief contact with justice. She had been

shut up in a room with the other witnesses, and had heard the

bailiff’s voice calling them one by one, and had seen them go out, her

great-uncle Stephen and her Aunt Thérèse just before her. Her turn

came last, and she had been conducted to the bar trembling like a new

recruit pushed out before the footlights. She had seen a great crowd

facing her as she came in, upstairs and down on the floor and in the

balcony, a multitude of eyes staring at her, wounding and overwhelming

her. All Chambéry was there, spying pitilessly on a young girl’s fear,

as they had spied eagerly of late on her family’s death agony. She

found herself at last before three magistrates in their red robes,

with the rows of jurors on their right. She had thought she should

faint when she gave her name, but her father’s voice had caught her

ears, that firm, warm voice which she knew so well. It had fortified

her instantly, like a cordial. The old advocate was standing erect in

front of Maurice, whom he seemed to be protecting, and his presence was

so calm that she was at once surprised and quieted by the contagion of

it. He put in quite simple terms the questions to be put to her. She

had made barely audible replies, and then had fled like a poor bird

fluttering off into the brushwood.

“Father will be displeased with me,” she thought in self-reproach.

“What a command he has over himself! How he controls himself, and

how they all fear him! He stood up twice, and each time I felt a

deeper silence in the room. His eyes flashed fire. He seemed young

again. He is our whole strength and will.”

At half-past twelve Mr. Roquevillard came home for lunch.

“Serve us quickly, Melanie,” he called out from the doorway. “I’ve not

much time.”

The look of battle was in his eyes, a frown on his brow, his gaze

direct and piercing. The muscles of his face were taut, and his recent

sorrow and anxiety had made him look much older; but his commanding

will checked for the time being the ravages of age and fatigue and

trouble.

“Well, father?” inquired Margaret piteously.

He reassured her in a few words.

“The hearing reopens in two hours.”

“It’s not over yet?”

“No, no.”

“What’s happened?”

“Didn’t you see anything of it, little girl?”

“Oh, no, father. I came away. Tell me every thing. See, I’m still

trembling.”

“You mustn’t tremble, Margaret. Be brave.”

At table, while he ate his lunch rapidly, but with no appetite, he went

over the arguments for her.

“You didn’t understand very much, no doubt,” he said, “about the

selection of the jury, the administering of the oath to them, the

challenging, and the calling of the witnesses.”

“I was near you in the hall, father. When I heard my name I rose,

and they led me into a room, where I found Uncle Stephen and Aunt

Thérèse.”

“The room where the witnesses wait,” said her father. “Then the

depositions began, after the reading of the bill of accusations and

the written report made by the police commissioner, stating the theft

of one hundred thousand francs. Then came the examination of Maurice.

He declared his innocence, but all the time refused to accuse any one

else, in spite of the president’s insistence. Of the witnesses for

the prosecution, the chief clerk at the Frasne office was the most

obstinate against us. He’s the one named Philippeaux, who must hate us,

I don’t know why. He testified with a perfect mania for denouncing and

compromising Maurice. He tried to make incontrovertible proofs out of

presumptions which he inverted and perverted wickedly.”

“What presumptions, father?”

“Knowledge of the deposit of money in the safe, the possible,

though not proven, discovery of the combination in a note-book,

Maurice’s staying late in the office with the keys the evening

of the theft, his lack of personal resources, his departure for

foreign territory, the impossibility of imagining any other

criminal, et cetera. The other clerks repeated his testimony like

well-learned lessons, though with less details and certainty.

Finally Mrs. Frasne’s former maid, whom they must have cajoled in

some way, pretended that, in her master’s absence, her mistress

never went into the offices. What does that prove? Would Mrs. Frasne

have called in her maids to help her embezzle? But I mustn’t accuse her

myself, either.”

“And yet Maurice is no longer opposed to your doing so, father.”

“I won’t do it, though. We have paid her ransom. Let her keep it and

never come back again. I had called as witnesses for the defence,

besides yourself, your great-uncle Stephen and my sister-in-law Thérèse

to establish the fact that Maurice had not gone away without funds;

also the employee of the Society of Credit, the one who made out for

you, some time last October, the draft for eight thousand francs on the

International Bank of Milan to Maurice’s order; finally Mr. Doudain,

the notary.”

“Why was he called?”

“To corroborate the payment of one hundred thousand francs that I

turned over to him for Mr. Frasne. He told also the name of the real

purchaser of La Vigie. The president, after having conferred with Mr.

Latache, president of the chamber of notaries, released him from his

professional secret, and he had to tell the truth to the jurors about

Mr. Frasne’s fruitful speculations.”

“Was it Mr. Frasne, then, who bought La Vigie?” asked the girl; “for

himself, to go and live there instead of us?”

“Didn’t you know it?”

“I couldn’t believe it. There are so many things that I

don’t understand. Even last year at the vintage he appeared to be

going round making an inspection. He ferreted round everywhere.”

“Yes, little girl, he’s the one who takes the Roquevillards’ place

there now, and carries on our traditions. The whole place is his,

gratis.”

His voice sounded bitter for a moment, then he continued again with his

story.

“His lawyer began speaking at eleven.”

“Who was his lawyer, father?”

“A Mr. Porterieux, from Lyons. There was no one of the bar in Chambéry

who would take the case.”

“On your account, father?”

“No doubt.”

“And what did he dare to say about Maurice?”

“He’s a clever man, though, with a very insinuating manner and a

kind of cold and calculated violence. He began by tracing a very

unflattering portrait of Maurice--a modern young man whom nothing

could check, very much imbued with the idea of individual rights;

keen to develop his personality and achieve happiness in his own way,

whether it trampled down other people’s or not; a young man who would

not be bound by the rules of organised society; in short, one of

those intellectual anarchists who pass so easily from words and ideas

to deeds. ‘Ask his comrades,’ he went on, ‘his friends. They cannot

deny that in his daily talk he disparages and tears to pieces the

established order of things, and that his special admiration is the

pernicious theories of a German philosopher for whom a superior type

of humanity, the superman, builds his fortune on the ruin and sorrow of

the common lot, the humble and the feeble. And it was not a secret from

any one in Chambéry that he was not on good terms with his father, and

chafed under his authority.’”

“He said that?” murmured Margaret, in a shocked voice.

“Yes; I’m giving you the tone of his address. Even from myself he

drew an adverse argument. From our family he got another; the accused

could not, he said, invoke the excuse of a bad education, a lack of

instruction, a bad example, or the extenuating circumstances of an

unhappy childhood, which might have spoiled his character forever.

I pass over his premeditated and self-interested seduction of Mrs.

Frasne.”

“Self-interested?”

“Yes, in his moral nihilism Maurice coveted at the same time both

the wife and the money, unscrupulously. Having thus made the abuse

of Mr. Frasne’s confidence seem probable, or believing he had, Mr.

Porterieux took up the accusation, and what he did not hesitate to call

its material proofs. Mrs. Frasne consented to run away, he said. Her

husband was absent, the day propitious, the opportunity unique. Her

lover, unprovided with any personal fortune, sought, and had to seek,

for some way to defray the expenses of their voyage. He knew that a

deposit had been made from the proceeds of the sale of Belvade; he

discovered in a memorandum book the secret of the safe; he had the keys

given to him, and arranged to be left alone in the office. He took the

money and fled to foreign parts with his mistress. Not only was he

guilty, but the only one guilty.”

“And Mrs. Frasne?”

“Mrs. Frasne? Let him accuse her, let him just dare to accuse her. He

had nothing to say at the examination, he says nothing at the trial.

‘I defy him to incriminate her,’ concluded the advocate, perhaps

imprudently informed by Mr. Battard of Maurice’s generous obstinacy:

and this silence, too, which is virtually an admission, condemns him.”

From the dining-room they had passed into the study. Margaret, in this

bitter and yet impartial review of the plaintiff’s argument which her

father made, heard the rumble of her father’s fury and despair, and was

upset by it completely.

“Father,” she murmured, “aren’t we lost? Have you still hope?”

“As if I hadn’t!”

“When will it be over?”

“At two o’clock, in forty minutes more, Mr. Porterieux will resume his

argument.”

“Hasn’t he done enough harm to us?”

“It appears not. He has one more argument to enlarge on.”

“What is it?”

“The new admission that comes, according to him, from my making

restitution of the one hundred thousand francs. By three o’clock I

suppose my turn comes. At four or four-thirty I shall be done.”

And he added, in an easy tone, to reassure her:

“Charles’s train gets in at one. Your brother-in-law ought to be here

now.”

A little later, in fact, Charles rang the bell.

“What news, my dear father?” he asked as he came in. “Germaine cried

this morning when she said good-bye to me, and the three children

imitated her. Your telegram last night caused us so much sorrow. Poor

Hubert!”

“I was waiting for you, Charles. Your place is by my side. Margaret

will talk to you about things while she gets your lunch. Let me be by

myself a few minutes. Be ready at five minutes to two.”

“I’ll be ready. And oh, I must warn you that I’ve made my arrangements

for restoring half of Germaine’s dot to you. Later you shall have it

all.”

The young lawyer made this announcement with rather an ill grace, being

a man little accustomed to benevolence, and trying to disguise it. He,

too, had been overborne by sympathy for the common cause; but as his

mind followed his heart protestingly, he did not like to advertise his

defeat.

“I won’t accept it, my dear Charles,” replied Mr. Roquevillard. He was

more moved by this cooperation than the opposition that he had been

prepared to combat, and he added:

“Embrace me, Charles.”

Thus family ties were stronger than ever in misfortune.

The advocate shut himself up for a quarter of an hour to gather up the

threads of his arguments. The review he had made for Margaret, under

the influence of high nervous excitement, had served as an outlet for

the anger and shame that had been accumulating in him all morning as

he listened to the infamous accusations made against his son. Now his

nerves relaxed, and the pounding of his heart grew calm, like the

sea when the wind falls. When the moment came for going back to the

court-house Margaret saw that his face was less stormy, and that his

glance had again the serenity which his visit last evening to La Vigie

had given him.

“Until to-night, father,” she said. “May God help you.”

On the doorstep he replied briskly: “Until to-night, little girl--with

Maurice.”

The girl had just shut herself in her room to pray when Jeanne Sassenay

called at the house.

“Miss Margaret, if you please,” she demanded of the servant who opened

the door.

The maid, more rigid and circumspect since Raymony Bercy’s invasion,

dismissed this inopportune question in a peremptory tone.

“Miss Margaret is tired. She is seeing no one.”

“So much the worse. I’ll come in, nevertheless.”

And passing by the frightened servant before she had time to bar the

way, Jeanne went through the hall on a run, as far as her friend’s

room, which she knew of old. She knocked smartly, entered and threw

herself into Margaret’s arms.

“It’s I, Margaret,” she said. “Don’t send me away. It’s not Melanie’s

fault.”

“You, Jeanne? Why are you here?”

“Because you are alone and tired. Such a lot of people have gone to the

hearing, just as if it were a party. And so I--well, I thought my place

was here with you. I love you so much.”

Margaret patted her friend’s cheek.

“You are good, Jeanne.”

“Oh, no. It’s just that I’ve so much friendship for you. When I was

quite little even, I admired you. And I should like so much to be like

you.”

Then in a mysterious tone she changed the subject abruptly.

“Just imagine,” she said, “those ladies all dressed themselves up so

for the court-house. As carefully as if they were going to a matinée.”

“Who?”

“Oh, all of them.”

“Yes,” said Miss Roquevillard bitterly. “It’s a question of our

honour--quite a spectacle.”

Jeanne Sassenay took her hand.

“I’m not anxious, myself,” she said; and in a learned

tone she cut the whole debate short: “On the whole, what

do they reproach your brother with that’s so serious? That he ran away

with some one? That’s nothing.”

In spite of her sadness Margaret could not keep back a smile, and

Jeanne took this for encouragement to go on.

“You know quite well a woman doesn’t let herself be removed as if she

were a spot on your clothes. If any one tried to carry me off I’d

scratch and bite and hurt him frightfully.... Unless I was going away

with him anyway.”

“Keep still, Jeanne.”

“Oh, you never can tell. When you’re in love you’ll do anything. To be

in love--it’s something terrible.”

“Jeanne, what do you know about being in love?”

“Why shouldn’t I know? I’m not a little girl any more.”

Thereupon Miss Sassenay gave a poke to her hat, which was losing its

balance on her blonde hair, verified the curls that fell over her

forehead, and assumed an air of great detachment, to hide her blushing,

as she asked:

“He doesn’t love that bad woman any more, does he?”

“Maurice? I don’t believe so.”

“Are you sure?”

“He never speaks of her.”

“She’s never seen him again?”

“No.”

“So much the better. I detest her. In the first place, she wasn’t

so good-looking as all that. Fine eyes, yes, but she used them a little

too much. And her smiles, and her sly looks, and her grimaces! She

was always balancing her head, and craning her neck, and heaving her

shoulders and wriggling her hips.”

She got out of her chair quickly and walked across the room in

imitation of Mrs. Frasne, caricaturing the gestures and the constant

play of movement by which the woman’s inner restlessness was betrayed.

“Jeanne, please stop,” cried Margaret.

“No, no,” continued the girl, fairly launched now. “I tell you

brunettes can’t be compared with blondes, for colouring or for grace

either. You, Margaret, with your chestnut hair, have the beauty of them

all, but you don’t do anything to help yourself.... And then, I detest

her anyway....”

“Detest whom, Jeanne?”

“Mrs. Frasne, of course. She’s a fatal woman, and brings bad luck. Your

brother has been well punished. She has made him unhappy. She didn’t

love him. She’s the one they should have put in jail. As for your

brother, they’ll acquit him. You know papa and mamma are for him. Papa

looked glum about it at first, but I scolded him. I should have liked

to go and see the acquittal. You must congratulate him for me. It must

be fine to be acquitted.”

She was babbling on without stopping. Margaret gently interrupted her.

“Will you pray with me, Jeanne?” she asked.

“If you wish.”

The two girls knelt side by side. But scarcely had they begun their

orisons before some one knocked at the door.

“It’s the postman,” said the maid, handing some letters to Margaret.

“Will you permit me?” the latter asked of her companion. “It was

Hubert’s day.... Oh, a letter from him.... I half expected one.”

With trembling hands she unsealed the envelope, which was postmarked

from the Soudan. From the other side of the gates of Death the young

officer was taking his part in the family drama. There are few

sensations so poignant as that of receiving tidings from those who are

no more. Margaret, whose shy patience had hitherto been like calm, let

a long moan escape her as she read. Jeanne, discreet and much moved

herself, did not dare console her. By her own force of will the girl

controlled herself. This was not the time to be weak or give way. Had

not her father shown her the proper way to act?

“Hubert!” she murmured.

She seemed to hesitate a moment what to do.

“I must--I think I must go to the court-house, at once,” she said.

“Why?” asked Jeanne.

“Oh, because Hubert, too, has thought of us.”

“Hubert?”

“Yes. He knew he was going to die. In the first part

of his letter he tries to deceive us, to cheer us up.

And then--and then he writes--there, wait a moment. God help

me! I can’t see any more. He writes: ‘If, however, I must stay here

always, I offer my life in sacrifice for the honour of our name, for

Maurice’s salvation....’ You see, he gives me my orders. I must go.”

Jeanne burst into tears. Already Margaret, in an uplifted mood, was

putting on her hat and veil. “I am sure father needs this letter. I

can’t hesitate about it.”

Some mysterious connivance seemed at work in the family, between

the living and the dead, something that mysteriously made them work

together and united them across space and time.

“I’ll go with you,” said her friend, as resolute as she.

“Yes, come,” said Margaret. “I shall be braver if you come with me.”

And the two girls hurried out, passing along by the castle, its glowing

walls warm in the winter sunshine; they took a short route through

little streets, and beyond the market reached the court-house in a few

minutes.

“The court-room, sir?” asked Margaret humbly of the doorkeeper.

“There, madame, on the ground floor. But the hall is full. You can’t

get in.”

“But we must go in,” Jeanne Sassenay interrupted, with great

assurance. “We have a letter, a very important one, to give to the

lawyer for the defence, A very important document.”

“Impossible, ladies. The argument is going on. It’s too late. Who are

you?”

The sister of the accused raised her veil.

“Miss Roquevillard.”

“Oh, very good. Follow me.”

Impressed by this name, he led them as far as the door reserved for the

use of witnesses.

“You can just open the door, miss. The lawyer’s bench will be before

you, a little to the left. Afterwards you can go out that way, or maybe

you can find a seat.”

And being a prudent and timid functionary, he added, as he left the two

girls:

“But be sure and don’t say it was me who let you in.”

Margaret, who went first, put her hand on the latch. She could hear the

voice of some one speaking on the other side. It was not her father’s

voice. Behind this door, the destiny of her brother, Maurice, the fate

of all the Roquevillards, was running its course at this hour. On

behalf of Hubert she was bringing up the last reserves.

VIII

THE VOICE OF THE DEAD

THE girls entered. It was a little more than half-past two o’clock: Mr.

Porterieux, venomous and insolent, was finishing his argument. In the

galleries and on the floor the public was crowded; people of fashion

and from the lower ranks confused together, eager to seize upon the

warm quarry of which this lawyer, like an expert and cruel hunter, was

laying bare for them the palpitating heart. People noticed the presence

of the young girls, who hesitated to come further forward, once inside

the door.

“They are on the lookout for husbands,” explained the lawyer Coulanges,

who, assisted by Mr. Paillet in the first row of the balcony, did the

honours of the trial to several ladies of society. It was an occasion

on which he believed that a certain show of wit was expected of him.

“Dear me!” cried one of the ladies, choking with indignation. “Just

look at that brazen girl.”

While Margaret was approaching her father and handing him Hubert’s

letter, her companion, Jeanne, with a quiet boldness, had the

satisfaction of defying the whole town by turning ostentatiously toward

Maurice Roquevillard, in his seat of shame, and waving her hand to him

with the most gracious smile.

She was immediately rewarded for her courage by the look of gratitude

that lighted up the young man’s face, a face that had grown thin and

drawn and as if contracted by the impassiveness which he had forced

himself to wear under his injuries and calumnies. The little incident

was over in a moment, but already excited the commentaries of the

entire room. Margaret, with her head bent, had no suspicion of it. She,

too, had saluted her brother, but more discreetly, and now murmured in

her friend’s ear:

“Let’s go.”

“Oh, no, I’m going to stay,” replied the latter, only too eager to be

present and hear the speeches.

Mr. Roquevillard, with a brief gesture, indicated some empty places

on the witness bench for them. The sun came in through the windows,

leaving the jurors, who were seated facing the light, in shadow, but

it lit up especially the court, the advocate-general, the lawyers and

the prisoner, as if it were a light thrown on the stage during some

performance in a theatre. Mr. Porterieux appeared in a full blaze as he

was summing up and condensing in a final charge the various items of

his argument. He repeated and reaffirmed the list of his accumulated

presumptions, and still another time paraded as indisputable avowals

the silence of the accused as to Mrs. Frasne and the payment of the

one hundred thousand francs. Finally he called loudly, as if it were

some right due him, for a severe and withering sentence on this young man

who practised such a utilitarian love, who, like a new Cherubino in

a practical epoch, did not hesitate to make off at one and the same

time with the husband’s funds and the wife’s honour. His peroration,

delivered with a complete semblance of anger and indignation, provoked

a numerous and mysterious murmur in the room as he sat down, coming

from the lips of all the crowd, without anything to show where it had

begun, like the sound of waves. His argument had been a perfect volley

of poisoned arrows, following each other directly and incessantly.

One would even have said that across the son he aimed at the father,

too, whom he represented as driven by shame to make his restitution;

that through the son and father he sought to attaint the whole race

and sink it in the mire with the unhappy Maurice. He had shown himself

more incensed against his victims than was necessary, a too implacable

enemy, ready to trample their dead bodies under foot. Of a verity

the notary had chosen his spokesman well. He could not have desired

more gall and venom in a single mouth. Mr. Roquevillard, now and then

during this speech, when the worst thrusts were delivered, turned

quietly toward his son or son-in-law, reassuring them by his calm and

even countenance, and showing that his soul was not distressed by this

tempest that waged about him.

“I call upon the advocate-general to speak,” articulated

the presiding judge, in a mournful voice, as much as to say,

What use is there in a second charge?

Mr. Vallerois, attracted by curiosity, had come into court and seated

himself behind the advocate-general, Mr. Barré, who was in the section

reserved for the public minister. He bent forward to address some

words to his colleague on the floor. But the latter seemed to scorn

his advice as importunate, and confined his remarks to saying that he

relied upon the good sense of the jurors to find for the plaintiff, the

case being already adjudged against the defendant by default.

“I call upon the defence,” began the president more briskly, evidently

pleased to have escaped a long harangue.

“Are you ready?” asked Mr. Hamel of Mr. Roquevillard, who was seated by

his side.

“Yes, of course. Why?”

“Then you speak first. If necessary, I’ll supplement you.”

Mr. Roquevillard saw that the old gentleman was still reeling beneath

an attack whose methods, according to his old-time traditions, were

inadmissible, and proposed to reserve his efforts in case his colleague

should be overcome by emotion in his speech or his argument be inferior

or incomplete.

During these special conferences, bits of conversation broke out again

here and there among the audience, rising and spreading like dust in

the wake of a procession.

“The Roquevillards,” remarked the lawyer Coulanges, who ranged

himself on Mr. Frasne’s side, “will never raise their heads again after

such a drubbing.”

“Oh, well, now,” objected Mr. Paillet, who was always in a good humour,

“wait till you hear the father’s reply, and then look out for Mr.

Porterieux.”

A man of the people, a frequenter of court trials, overheard him.

“Yes, the old man is tough,” he commented more racily.

And Mr. Paillet laughed and insisted:

“You’ll see whether he knows how to bite yet, and if his teeth are

sharp.”

“He looks very tired,” murmured a lady compassionately.

“Say, rather, he looks quite broken up,” replied Mr. Coulanges,

tidying some small matter about his clothes. “Two old men aren’t worth

one young one,” he added, with a manner that was as much as to say,

“especially with women.” Then he pointed down to the two lawyers, who

were exchanging their observations not far from where Mr. Battard sat,

with his fingers in his beard, watching to see the defence’s final

downfall.

Mr. Roquevillard took off his lawyer’s cap and stood up. He

glanced in turn, quite deliberately, at his daughter and his son,

and gathered hope and confidence from the sight of them. Silence

fell on the room immediately, a silence deep and throbbing with

expectation, that made people hold their breath and their hearts

stand still. This man with the almost white hair, this old man

with his record of more than sixty years of probity and talent and

upright living, who stood forth as the sole representative of so many

generations of honourable and patriotic men, uttered, by the mere act

of rising to his feet, an eloquent protest against the calumnies and

defamation with which the long argument for the plaintiff had tried to

overwhelm his race. Had they not insinuated even that La Vigie had been

sold to pay back money that had not all been squandered by the thief?

It was a protest made before a word was spoken, and one that all the

Battards in the world could not have impressed more forcefully upon the

audience.

The court-room clock marked the hour of three. The old lawyer had

risen slowly to his feet, and now drew himself to his full height; his

head, erect, showed clearly in the broad band of light marked out by

the rays of the pale sun, too pale now to inconvenience those on whom

it fell. His high, bare forehead, his finely accentuated features,

dulled by age, but nevertheless still full of pride, his stiffly curled

moustache, made up a fighter’s face, a leader’s, that one could not

behold without an impression of forcefulness and keen and eager living.

But the flame that dwelt habitually in his deep eyes, once so sharply

imperious, now shone with complete serenity rather than with any lust

of conquest.

“Broken down, do you say? Just look at him,” protested

the lady under Mr. Coulanges’s escort.

“And yet I don’t recognise him any more,” observed Mr. Paillet.

Margaret and Mr. Hamel, on the contrary, all attention, and quite

vibrating with anxiety, recognised in him the same superhuman

exaltation that he had brought back from that strange walk to La Vigie

the night before. He began his remarks in a voice that was rather low,

a fact which inspired Mr. Battard, not without some satisfaction, it

must be confessed, to remark that: “His fine organ isn’t what it was.”

Then, abruptly, as a curtain is drawn apart, his voice opened up

clearly, sounded the rallying call, the summons to the dead, who last

evening on the icy shadowed slopes of the hills had made up his phantom

army. There was a living silence in the room, heavy and storm-laden,

and he plowed through it like a vessel through the sea.

To pass judgment on the prisoner, he said, it was incumbent on the

jurors to know him, and to know him they must go back to what he came

from. For it was the uncertain destiny of man, born in such and such a

corner of the earth, of such and such a race, to follow a predestined

course, and by his own force of will to work his way through to

efficiency and his destined end.

“You who come from lines of honest forefathers, and yourselves have

founded families, must listen to this history of a family that I

shall tell you, before you decide upon your verdict....”

To the peasants from the plains and mountains, of whom the jury was

composed, who, by nature and reflection, could not but be sensible

to this actual human chronicle, the truthfulness and example of it

striking true to their honest minds, he then told the long story of

successive Roquevillards: the first ancestor of them all, who had laid

the first stone of the old house, planting the roots of his tree of

life in his native soil, the struggle of successive generations adding

their efforts, one to another, clearing the ground by the sweat of

their brows, showing their doggedness with the stubborn soil, or in

the face of intemperate or hurtful seasons, the chance destruction of

crops by hail or frost, their sobriety and content with a few things,

their thrift, which, at the expense of their personal enjoyment, made

provision for the future--a thrift at once disinterested and in itself

an act of faith in the coming generations. Thus the beautiful estate

of La Vigie, whose vines and woods and fields and orchards produced

so abundantly, laughing in the sunlight, in the time of harvest,

represented the economy and endurance of a whole race, straight as a

line of tall and growing poplars. For land that is cultivated by man

assumes a human face, and when we behold our properties we are gazing

on the countenances of our ancestors. And yet to what end had all this

collective labour of the Roquevillards been reduced? To-day their

domain belonged to the plaintiff, their adversary, who had gotten it

for nothing. Had the Roquevillards laboured for five hundred years to

make this present to him? No, but with their patrimony which they

had patiently and painfully built up they were ransoming this last

Roquevillard of them all. Who, then, had been despoiled, and which was

the thief? For one hundred thousand francs paid down Mr. Frasne was

receiving, accepting, a property worth almost twice that sum. Who was

getting rich, then? Who was being ruined? In the name of the dead who

paid this ransom, the accused must be acquitted.

But was not a family just a great material force, visibly expressed in

the continuity of its patrimony, by its mutual obligations permitting

the payment of the debts of some by the fruits of others’ toil? Was

it not indeed something else, too, less palpable but more sacred--a

solid chain of traditions, a common heritage of honour, probity and

courage? What use was it to transmit life if you were not to supply it

with a worthy setting, support and comfort from the past, opportunity

for a well-stored future? For to transmit life was to admit life’s

immortality.

And he recited the public services of the Roquevillards, all the

outward ways of existence, useful and sometimes illustrious even, that

their forefathers had followed. This one, the county magistrate, had

died at his post during an epidemic in the town, which he had been

the foremost in resisting. Another, later, in a period of troubles

and disorders, had administered the finances of Chambéry and restored

order in its involved affairs. Whole-hearted magistrates of the Savoyan

Senate, soldiers killed by the enemy in the great wars, they had worn,

beneath toga or uniform alike, the same bold, brave hearts that had

beat beneath the peasant blouses of the first forefathers of them all.

The last of them all, Hubert, dying for his country, alone in a strange

land, far from all who were dear to him, under a fierce and hostile

sun, had given voice to the final vow of his race when he had written:

“I offer my life as a sacrifice for the honour of our name and my

brother’s safety.”

Could the gentlemen of the jury reject this offering? As well forget

all the victims for centuries past that had signalised the constantly

renewing virtues of this family, like the fires which cleansed their

fields at evening of the withered herbage. He threw the weight of

accumulated merits in the balance and made the scales tip.

The entire army of the dead, who had come down from La Vigie the

evening before, to leap across the valley in the dark and join their

chief as he stood erect at the foot of the old tree on the Saint Cassin

plain, filed by in a long parade.

To the merits of the dead he added the virtues of the living. This

was not a time to be modest and defer to reticence. He would give

all honour to Felicie in the hospital at Hanoi, and again to his

sisters, who had made themselves poor in order to suppress even the

suspicion of fraud on their brother’s part. For the payment delivered

into Mr. Frasne’s hands had not, and could not be, in the eyes of the

culprit’s family or of the jurors, either a restitution or an

admission, but a definite rejection of all complicity in the theft,

even an unknowing or involuntary one.

He barely excused himself for enumerating and insisting upon the

rendering of so many services, and reproaching the plaintiff with

ingratitude for neglecting them. On the other side they had not

scrupled to forget them, or worse still, to make them appear as faults

on the part of the accused. What the plaintiff really wanted to do was

to build on the pretended guilt of the defendant and overwhelm with one

blow the defences of his past; he was unjust enough to deny the accused

the right to its protection. Yet the merits of a race constitute a true

defence of it until and unless the sum of its demerits weighs it down,

unless it wilfully provokes its own downfall. Was there any one who

pretended to believe that the sum of the Roquevillards’ demerits had

yet borne them down? No, the dead could go moral bail for this last of

the Roquevillards, as they had just supplied his material bail in the

sacrifice of La Vigie. Even if he had his faults, his judges could not

justly declare him guilty in this instance.

How indeed could he be guilty now? By what phenomenon could

the descendant of so many honest men be suddenly stirred to

crime? What definite proof could they furnish of his crime? What

weight, in the face of the moral presumptions of his family

and surroundings, which flowed round him like the water of a

torrent, could they give these miserable presumptions that chance had

hatched out and circumstances twisted incriminatingly? The keys of the

office--they had passed from hand to hand. The number of the safe’s

combination--how could the defendant have hunted it out, guessed its

use? And when had the clerk Philippeaux written it in his memorandum

book? Did the jurors dwell on his lack of personal resources? He had

himself paid all the expenses of the journey, large and small, without

exception, either with money that he had taken away with him, as to

which the examination of witnesses had given a full account, or with

what he had received at Orta. The hotel bills which the defence had

recovered and exhibited proved this. What, then, had been done with

the stolen one hundred thousand francs, if all his expenses had been

defrayed by advances from his family? If he had put it away somewhere,

as was insinuated, why had he come back and surrendered himself to the

law the moment word came to him of the judgment that had been entered

against him by default?

Nothing was left of the accusation against him, nothing but the

animus of revenge, a spirit of revenge that could not even resist

the temptation to make a profit out of its own humiliation. It was a

singular affair, indeed, in which the victim carried off the spoils

from the pretended thief.

Mr. Roquevillard brought his argument to an end in a few words:

“Gentlemen of the jury, I have finished. In the name of all our

families’ dead, whose long line makes up our everliving honour, in

the name of our land slowly acquired and laboriously cultivated by

succeeding generations, but given up to-day and fully sacrificed to

consolidate our honour, I ask you to restore to me my son. Give him

back to me, not for pity’s sake, but in justice; not as a favour, but

with all your hearts. All his race and I myself will answer to you for

his innocence....”

He sat down. He had spoken only an hour. When his voice, which had been

calm and sonorous, always under control, rising and swelling like the

grave notes of a hymn, ceased speaking, there was a prolonged silence

in the room for some moments, the solemn and religious silence that

one hears in church. People had heard, not the explosion of wrath and

bitterness that they had expected as their due from this redoubtable

old lawyer in answer to the hateful violence of Mr. Porterieux: not the

scandal of a lover’s recriminations against his mistress that they had

counted on; but a proud defence that disdained invective, confident in

its authoritative, moral force, admirable and moving along its straight

and simple lines, like the proportions of those serene and motionless

statues that purify desire and stir the spirit. And the name of Mrs.

Frasne had not once been uttered.

All of a sudden a cry rang out:

“Hurrah for the Roquevillards!”

It came from Mother Fauchois, and she threw her whole heart into

it. The crowd in the court-room had been overborne, dominated and

conquered; it broke into long applause. While the presiding judge

rapped on his desk to check this demonstration, which nevertheless had

put the irritated Mr. Battard to flight, Mr. Vallerois leaned forward

once more to Mr. Barré. The latter now asked leave to speak, as Mr.

Hamel had declined, excusing himself from availing himself of his

right to speak in rebuttal after having neglected to use his right to

sum up.

“I have heard, like you,” Mr. Barré said in substance, addressing the

jurors, “the plea made by Mr. Roquevillard. No, the guilty party is not

this young man here. And since the accused has had the generosity not

to designate any one, I’ll not myself indicate things any further. I

will denounce, however, the too clever machinations of this plaintiff,

who disarms our sympathy by having used his private sorrows to build up

a fortune. Make haste and bring in a verdict of acquittal for Maurice

Roquevillard; restore him to his father, who is an honour to our bar.

If the young man has been reprehensible in his private life, he need

not nevertheless be retained any longer on this charge of abuse of

confidence.”

The day was waning, leaving the whole room filled with the

evening light. The jury retired to its deliberations, and brought

in immediately a unanimous verdict of acquittal.

“Bravo!” cried Jeanne Sassenay approvingly, in a loud voice.

“Father,” murmured Margaret softly, “mamma would be so happy.”

And the spectators, turning and going out, exchanged their comments on

the way. Mr. Latache, winding up his remarks before a little group,

shook his head sententiously.

“It’s a good rap over the knuckles for Mr. Frasne,” he said. “After

being publicly reprimanded by the public minister, he ought to shut up

his offices and leave the country.”

“He’ll sell La Vigie again,” declared Mr. Paillet.

The lady whom Mr. Coulanges was seeing home expressed her delight at

the way things had turned out, to take her cavalier down a peg or two,

a pastime in which she seemed to find great pleasure.

“And the little Sassenay girl will buy it back. She has a big dot.

Did you notice the look she gave the young prisoner, the triumphant

Maurice? She’s going to marry him.”

“Yes, that will be the way of it,” said Mr. Coulanges, gloomily summing

things up; “the Roquevillards have always been lucky.”

IX

THE WILL TO LIVE

THE good will of the presiding judge hastened the formalities of

liberation, and while the crowd, having left the court-room, massed

itself in the space outside the court-house, to watch for Maurice and

his defender to come out, and to cheer them, the more enthusiastically

because their remorse was tardily shown, Mr. Roquevillard was waiting

for his son in the inner court. He was alone, for he had asked Charles

Marcellaz to see Mr. Hamel home. The struggle over, he felt tired and

worn, and was lost in his meditations. A timid voice called to him:

“Father.”

“Is it you, Maurice?”

Instead of throwing themselves into each other’s arms, quite

simply, they stood motionless, as if frozen. The lack of some

first gesture is enough sometimes to create separations, to make

obstacles. On his son’s face the father read admiration, gratitude,

filial piety; on the father’s face the son read love and goodness,

but also the new stigmata of weariness and age. They said

nothing; sorrowfully, with a shyness they could not overcome.

In the street outside they heard the noise of cheers.

“Come,” said Mr. Roquevillard brusquely.

He led Maurice to the other side of the courtyard, where a gate opened

on a public garden, luckily now deserted. He crossed it with rapid

steps, hurried quickly over the iron footbridge beneath which rolled

the muddy waters of the Leysse, and the two men reached the cemetery

presently without having exchanged a word.

The cemetery at Chambéry lies to the eastward of the town, at the

beginning of the vast plain which stretches as far as Lake Bourget;

over it the rocky hill of Lemenc stands guard, and beyond that the

regularly storeyed peaks of Le Nivolet. The shadows of night were

already settling down over the sacred field, and little by little

reaching the hills, but the setting sun still covered the mountain,

stirring its whiteness as with a flow of blood--one of those fine

winter evenings that are cold and calm, naked as marble images, and of

a divine purity.

Maurice could distinguish, opposite him, the thin columns of the

Calvary where his heart’s love had overwhelmed him. A last ray of light

threw their outlines into relief, then they seemed to recede against

the walls of the little monument and lose themselves in it.

“How far away it all is!” he thought.

Some cypress trees, with branches like lance-heads, sprinkled with

hoar-frost, stood grave as sentinels set to guard the enclosure.

Passing these, they went on and on, past the graves of the poor,

scarcely distinguished by the mounds beneath the snow, until they came

finally to the broad avenue of perpetual concessions.

“Father, I know where we are going,” murmured Maurice at last, thinking

of his mother.

“We’re going to our family tomb,” explained Mr. Roquevillard; “to thank

our dead for having saved you.”

“Father, it was you that saved me,” said Maurice.

“I was speaking in their name.”

As they drew near the end of their pilgrimage, they made out, across

the empty graveyard, a black figure kneeling before the gravestone

which stood just before a wall covered with inscriptions.

“Father, look; there’s some one there,” said Maurice.

“It’s Margaret! She has got here ahead of us.”

The girl heard the dull noise of their footsteps on the trodden snow,

and turned her head. She blushed on recognising them, and rose, as if

she would go and not be in the way at their first interview.

“I came here to be near mamma,” she said.

“Don’t go,” her father bade her gently.

Along the slopes of Le Nivolet the evening was mounting upward. Only

the snow on the higher levels still fought with the shadows, the light

slipping and flowing over it in a cascade of gold and purple. With

one last flash, as if of apotheosis, the victorious shadow scaled the

highest grade and occupied the summit.

The wall opposite them bore a single family name, their own, but

beneath it there were given names and dates in great number. A branch

of perennial ivy climbed over it with its green leaves, and fell half

forward, like a crown of spring.

“Listen,” said Mr. Roquevillard. His face bore the same stamp of

serenity as at the trial. “It’s night,” he said, “and we are in the

field of the dead. And yet from every corner of the earth you hear only

the strongest words of life. Look, before the shadows hide it; all

round you spreads the country that your heart loves best. And here,

too, lies your family, at rest.”

In his turn Maurice knelt, and remembering his mother, who had gone

without farewell to him, and his brother, who had made the sacrifice of

his life for him, he hid his face in his hands. But his father touched

him on the shoulder, and spoke to him in a firm voice.

“My boy,” he said, “I am an old man now. You will soon succeed me. You

must listen to me now, this day, when I feel it is my duty to speak

to you. Here are the symbols of all that is enduring. To care for the

dead is in a sense the fulfilling of our immortal destiny. What is a

man’s life, what is my life, if past and future don’t give it its true

meaning? You had forgotten this when you went in search of your individual

destiny. There is no set destiny for the individual, no greatness in

life, except in servitude. We serve our family, we serve our country,

God, art, science, an ideal. Shame on the man who only serves himself!

You, Maurice, you have found your strongest support in us, but your

dependence too. Man’s honour lies in accepting his due place in life.”

Maurice, rising from his knees, saw the Calvary of Lemenc before him in

the twilight, and the thought came to him sadly, “What of love?”

His father guessed what he was thinking of.

“Such a little thing, dear boy,” he said, “may divide the honest and

the dishonest impulses in a man. Love breaks this barrier down. The

family keeps it strong. And yet, even at this hour, Maurice, I won’t

speak ill of love, if only you know how to understand it. Love is

our heart’s sigh for all that lies beyond our grasp. Cherish this

longing in your heart. It is yours to cherish. You will find it again

in doing good deeds, in nature, in fulfilling your destiny without

fear or frailty. Don’t misunderstand it. Don’t mistake it any more.

Before you give your love to a woman, remember your mother, think

of your sister; think of the happiness that may be in store for you

some day of having a daughter of your own to bring up. I was glad

when you were born, and at your brother’s birth and your sisters’ I

rejoiced. With all my strength I have protected you. At my death, I

tell you, you will feel as if a wall had crumbled down before you, and

left you face to face with life. Then you will understand me better.”

“Father,” murmured Maurice, breaking down. “I shall not be unworthy of

you.”

“My boy!” replied Mr. Roquevillard quite simply. And Margaret, seeing

them at last in each other’s arms, remembered the vow she had made her

mother.

In the deepening sky, toward La Vigie, an early star began to shed its

light. Mr. Roquevillard, holding to his heart this son whom he had won

back, this last and only son, marked it as a sign of hope. And in the

darkened graveyard, where he had come to return the dead their visit to

him of the night before, even though he felt that he was menaced, too,

by death, the head of the family made his confession of faith in life.