In carrying out her project she would be acting rightly, of that she was now more than ever convinced; but locked up with the brethren at Lorge, would not her own courage fail? Perhaps it would be safer to remain in the Paris whirlpool. But what of the children then, and what of the prisons that filled so rapidly? Behind the bars and bolts of La Force or the Abbaye, of what service could she be to them? Leave the country she would not, stay in the capital she dared not. Moreover, in so turbulent a time her place was among her people in her distant citadel of Lorge. All that was fine in theory, yet her heart whispered grave doubts as to her tenacity of purpose in carrying out to the end the fight so boldly planned. Alas, did she not know too well that standing alone and unsupported, with no succour within hail, she would go down at the shock of the first lance? Should she parley, even surrender now, at once--unveil her feebleness and implore pity? Promise to abandon the project which raised such ire and stirred the lees of the worst passions, trust the future of her children to their father's paternal instincts? No; one of the lessons taught by the abbé was that Clovis was born to be led. Happily that woman had been expelled, but rescued from her baleful control, he would fall under that of somebody else, and circumstanced as they were, who should that other be but the vindictive Pharamond? Of course, at Lorge, the marquis would sink completely under the abbé's sway; and with him for master, much chance would Victor and Camille have of justice in the event of their mother's death. Come what might to her, they should be guarded. Taking her courage in both hands and clinging firmly to it, she must pray for strength to bear all, doing what was best for the little ones. The best security against the greed and malevolence of Pharamond would be to place the fortune out of reach. As these considerations flitted across the mind of the harassed marquise, she took comfort in the thought that the arch-foe should have exposed himself as he was before the party had started from Paris. Further precautions should be devised by a mother's ingenuity such as should reduce to harmlessness, in the event of disaster to herself, the abbé's strongest batteries.