When he thought of his sister, the sweet creature whom he had loved, with so virile and noble an affection, that of an elder brother for a frail refined child, in the possession of this clown, this chance preceptor, him who had inflicted on his race an outrage so abject he could have roared with fury, as when, during the war, it had been necessary to assist at the capitulation of Metz and to give up his arms. He felt then a solace in thinking that the bench of infamy on which were seated burglars, swindlers, and murderers was waiting for this man, and then the scaffold or the galleys. And he stifled the voice which said: “You ought to speak.” My God! what agony for him in these three months, during which there had not been five minutes in which he had not struggled against these contradictory sentiments. On the field of drill, for he had returned to service; on horseback, galloping over the roads of Lorraine; in his room thinking, over this question: “What was he to do?” Weeks had passed without any answer, but the moment had come when it was necessary to act and to decide, for in two days--the trial must occupy four sessions--Greslon would be judged and condemned. There would be still some time after the conviction; but what of it! The same debate would only have to be gone over again. He had not decided to be silent until the last. He refrained from speaking, but he had not vowed to himself that he would refrain from speaking. This was the reason it had been physically impossible for him to accompany his father to the Palais de Justice during this first session, of which he should soon hear the account, as twelve was striking, twelve very harsh strokes followed by a carillon in the steeple of a neighboring church. “My captain, here is M. the Marquis,” said the orderly, who had heard the rolling of a carriage, then its stop before the hotel, after which he took a look out of the window. “Ah, well, my father?” asked André anxiously as soon as the marquis had entered.