“Certainly, odiously--among those that matter. It is said even that you were Omnes Omnibus, though that I cannot, will not believe.” “Yet it is true.” M. de Kercadiou choked. “And you confess it? You dare to confess it?” “What a man dares to do, he should dare to confess--unless he is a coward.” “Oh, and to be sure you were very brave, running away each time after you had done the mischief, turning comedian to hide yourself, doing more mischief as a comedian, provoking a riot in Nantes, and then running away again, to become God knows what--something dishonest by the affluent look of you. My God, man, I tell you that in these past two years I have hoped that you were dead, and you profoundly disappoint me that you are not!” He beat his hands together, and raised his shrill voice to call--“Benoit!” He strode away towards the fireplace, scarlet in the face, shaking with the passion into which he had worked himself. “Dead, I might have forgiven you, as one who had paid for his evil, and his folly. Living, I never can forgive you. You have gone too far. God alone knows where it will end. “Benoit, the door. M. Andre-Louis Moreau to the door!” The tone argued an irrevocable determination. Pale and self-contained, but with a queer pain at his heart, Andre-Louis heard that dismissal, saw Benoit’s white, scared face and shaking hands half-raised as if he were about to expostulate with his master. And then another voice, a crisp, boyish voice, cut in. “Uncle!” it cried, a world of indignation and surprise in its pitch, and then: “Andre!” And this time a note almost of gladness, certainly of welcome, was blended with the surprise that still remained. Both turned, half the room between them at the moment, and beheld Aline in one of the long, open windows, arrested there in the act of entering from the garden, Aline in a milk-maid bonnet of the latest mode, though without any of the tricolour embellishments that were so commonly to be seen upon them. The thin lips of Andre’s long mouth twisted into a queer smile. Into his mind had flashed the memory of their last parting. He saw himself again, standing burning with indignation upon the pavement of Nantes, looking after her carriage as it receded down the Avenue de Gigan. She was coming towards him now with outstretched hands, a heightened colour in her cheeks, a smile of welcome on her lips. He bowed low and kissed her hand in silence. Then with a glance and a gesture she dismissed Benoit, and in her imperious fashion constituted herself Andre’s advocate against that harsh dismissal which she had overheard. “Uncle,” she said, leaving Andre and crossing to M. de Kercadiou, “you make me ashamed of you! To allow a feeling of peevishness to overwhelm all your affection for Andre!” “I have no affection for him. I had once. He chose to extinguish it. He can go to the devil; and please observe that I don’t permit you to interfere.” “But if he confesses that he has done wrong...”