No doubt such a conclusion did not lack irony. By what right was he, who thus exalted the family and the home, and in so solemn, exact and eloquent a style, qualified to speak of them? He showed the importance of unity in the family, of fixed inheritance, indissolubility of marriage; and he himself, voluntarily out of society, had left his wife and children, and visited the Basque countries to gather this sheaf of reflections there, in the company of his mistress. For a reader who knew the circumstances, this must be amusing. So many who lead regular lives, it is true, write anarchistic books, that one must expect by contrast, to receive lessons in conventionality from those who live irregularly, whose weakness in private life touches only the heart or the senses without corrupting the mind. It is so easy, so tempting, so flattering, to convert one's passions into theories, to transform one's own misfortunes into public calamities, to generalize one's mistakes, that it required a clear-sighted point of view to distinguish the lack of solidity in his power of resistance to his own experience, and to understand that this implied a rare force of thought in him. Elizabeth, when she closed the volume, had not grasped the irony of the contrast. But the realization that Albert had not changed in his social analyses and remained resolutely faithful to his first theories on the subject, which she now remembered having heard him outline, seemed to indicate to her that in place of a lost heart, a mental link still connected him with those whom he had deserted, and that she had not been betrayed as thoroughly as she thought. IV THE NEW LIFE At the end of May, Elizabeth left Grenoble to settle in the old house at Saint Martin. Her daughter, a little anæmic and nervous, needed a change of air, and the doctor advised the mountains. She asked her parents, not without a secret mental reservation, to accept her hospitality. M. Molay-Norrois refused her invitation. "We will go to Uriage in the great heat, of course. But in the middle of winter!" "The middle of winter, Father? It is spring, and to-morrow it will be summer." "Well, you must not count on me." As he appreciated the country only if he could enjoy city pleasures there, with a great deal of social intercourse, he would wait until the hotels of the little watering place were filled. After this refusal, Elizabeth begged Mme. Derize to accompany her. "You," she said to her, "will be our hostess. I had made up my mind to accept nothing more from Albert, and the property of Saint-Martin belongs to him. Marie Louise's illness necessitates our going. When you are up there with me I shall have no such scruples." "Why have them? Albert has only one hearth, yours. He owes you his assistance." "I refuse it. Do you not understand?" "No, a father has the care of his children. This separation causes me so much pain. As much as to you. He cannot realize it himself." "Never speak to him of me."