"I have now, dear child, too much knowledge of your father's innermost nature. His presence is hateful to me. It would be impossible for me to live with him. Hence, my poor girl, we must part." "We part!" cried Charlotte, passionately embracing Madam Desmarais and mingling her tears with her mother's: "And where will you go?" "I shall go back to Lyons, to my cousin's; I have resolved upon that, since I can do nothing here, alas, to add either to your happiness or my brother's safety." "Let us hope, mother, let us hope," said Charlotte through her tears, after a pause. "Perhaps there is a way for us not to separate, good mother, and also to save uncle. Ah, mother, happiness, and above all the desire to make others whom we love share our happiness, renders the mind quick to invent. Last night, after father and you consented to my marrying John, he and I were alone for a few minutes. Here is what he told me: Before coming here, he had gone to Monsieur Billaud-Varenne, and he learned from this gentleman that father had previously commissioned him to offer my hand to Monsieur St. Just. Thus John learned that father counted on finding in him a buffer against the dangers which he fears, and that this was the motive that led him, in default of Monsieur St. Just, to offer my hand to John. That does not matter; but John also learned from Monsieur Billaud-Varenne that he had said to father: 'Since you so greatly desire to marry your daughter to a good republican, why not give her to John Lebrenn? He is, you say, your pupil; he enjoys the esteem and friendship of the most eminent men of the Revolution.'" "No doubt your father hoped, in marrying you to St. Just--" "To build himself a powerful bulwark against possible danger. But Monsieur St. Just not having accepted the alliance, and Monsieur Billaud-Varenne proposing John, father feared to seem to despise a workingman should he refuse him my hand." "And what opinion did John Lebrenn express of your father?" "John said that father's conduct was lacking in straightforwardness, and added, 'I have never failed in frankness toward you, Charlotte. If it pleases you still to live with your father, I shall yield to your desires, and I shall keep ever hidden the slight esteem in which, unhappily, I am forced to hold him. But if it is in your thoughts not to dwell beneath the paternal roof after our marriage, I shall be more pleased with that resolution, as it will permit me not to be separated from my sister.' And in this connection, mother," added Charlotte with touching emotion, "John gave me a proof of confidence as honorable in him as in his sister. He recounted to me all that related to the unfortunate girl, but all under the seal of secrecy. If Mademoiselle Lebrenn has been the most unhappy creature in the world, because of certain terrible events, no one is now more than she worthy of the respect of all."