"Ah, dear mother," was John's answer, "I understand, I overlook the prejudices of which you accuse yourself. What causes them, what even often justifies them, is the faults of so many of the disinherited, unhappy ones, who, sunk in misery, in ignorance, and abandonment, have fallen prey to the fatal vices that are nearly always engendered by these conditions. So, do you know what has been my motive in wishing to succeed Master Gervais in his smithy, where a score or so of apprentices are always employed? It is to form in our shop a sort of practical school of industrious, upright, and efficient workmen, jealous of their rights as citizens, but also imbued with a sense of their public duties. I hope to render still more fervent, still more glowing, their love for their country, and for the Republic. I wish, in associating them with my labors, to make them associated with the benefits thereof. I hope, in short, to watch with fatherly solicitude over my young apprentices. I shall choose orphans wherever possible, to the end of giving them a family, and bringing them up good republicans. I have not, have I, Charlotte, presumed too much upon you, in counting on your help for these poor boys?" "Ah, count also on my co-operation, my dear John," exclaimed Madam Desmarais, her eyes filling with tears. "I now understand the grandeur, the usefulness, the holiness of the task which you impose upon yourself for the benefit of your apprentices and workmen. You seek to educate them; you charge yourself with the molding of their characters!" Gertrude, entering at that moment, said to the young workman: "Monsieur Desmarais knows that you are here, Monsieur Lebrenn. He asks you to wait for him. He will be in directly." "Mother," said Charlotte sadly, "grievous as is the dissimulation, I believe there is every necessity for us not to inform father as yet of our resolve to live apart from him after my wedding." "I am not of your opinion, my dear Charlotte," objected John, whose candidness would have suffered under the reticence. "At any rate, we have time to consider the matter. But it is necessary to decide, before Monsieur Desmarais comes in on how to convey to Monsieur Hubert the proposal I made to you, dear mother." "Dear John," replied Madam Desmarais, "I have a secure means of communication with him. But should my letter indeed be intercepted, and your name be found in it, do you not fear to be compromised?" "Should they seize your letter, it will not injure me in the slightest. The attempt I make is loyal. I accept proudly the responsibility attached to it, the same as, this very morning, I took upon myself the responsibility, still more serious on the face of it, of giving an Emigrant who had sought refuge with me the means, not of escaping justice--my duty would not permit that--but of leaving our house. Thanks to me, the ex-Count of Plouernel was able, without molestation, to gain a safe retreat."