"Citizen Desmarais," replied Lebrenn, half in pity, half in disgust, "it depends upon you alone to put an end to your alarms, to the terrors by which you are assailed and of which those about you are the first victims. Cease to display in exaggerated form opinions which are at fisticuffs with your real belief. Renounce your public career. The weakness of your character, the uneasiness of your conscience, evoke fantasms before your eyes." "It is a plot against my life!" continued Desmarais wildly. "They want to draw upon my head the fury of the Jacobins, and have me packed off to the scaffold. They want to be rid of me so that my dutiful daughter and son-in-law may play ducks and drakes with my fortune! But the old fox knows the trap! I shall stay at the Convention. My daughter and son-in-law may take themselves off, if they so wish; but as for you, Citizeness Desmarais, you shall not leave this house. The wife, according to the law, is bound to reside at the home of her husband." "I will live with you no longer," resolutely replied Madam Desmarais. "A hundred times rather die!" "Once would suffice, worthy wife! And it would be good riddance to a most abominable burden." "Come, mother," said Charlotte, wroth at her father's brutal language. "Come. You shall not remain here another instant." "Your mother shall stop where she is," cried the lawyer threateningly. "As for you, my daughter--as for you, my son-in-law--I shall denounce your execrable complot to my friends of the mad-men's party, to Hebert, to James Roux the disfrocked priest, to Varlet. Get you hence--I drive you from my house." Then seizing his wife by the arm, Desmarais added, "But not you. You stay!" "You will please to allow my mother full control over her own actions, Citizen Desmarais," said Lebrenn calmly, and mastering his indignation. "Unhand her!" "Get out of here, scoundrel!" retorted the attorney, still holding his wife by the wrist. "Get out of here, at once!" "For the last time, Citizen Desmarais," quoth John Lebrenn. "Allow Madam Desmarais to follow her daughter, as is her desire. My patience is at an end, and I can not much longer tolerate the brutality I see here." "Would you have the boldness to raise your hand against me, wretch!" replied the advocate, foaming with rage, and roughly wrenching his wife's arm. "Malediction on you both." "Aye, I shall succor your wife from your wretched treatment," John answered; and seizing the lawyer's wrist with his iron hand as if in a vise, he forced the attorney to release his almost fainting spouse. She, on her part, made all haste to leave the now intolerable presence of her husband, and, supported by Charlotte, disappeared into the next room. As John left the parlor to rejoin his bride and his second mother, advocate Desmarais, hiding his face in his hands, sank into an arm-chair, crying: "Abandoned by wife, abandoned by daughter! Henceforth I am condemned to live alone!" CHAPTER XXI. A LOVE FROM THE GRAVE.