“And you were not going to tell me about it? God has taken pity on us. Our excess of misfortune has touched Him. Raymond’s conduct is very fine. He hasn’t waited for us to be publicly cleared of all disgrace before he came to us. And what did you say to him?” “I refused him.” Mr. Roquevillard gave an astonished movement and drew the girl nearer to him, looking deep into her great clear eyes. “Refused him? Why? But I can guess: you were thinking of me. You are sacrificing yourself for your father. Your father won’t accept the sacrifice, sweetheart. I have told you often that parents must subordinate their lives to their children’s: that’s the natural order, not the contrary.” “Father,” she murmured, “I love you so well. You know it. However, you deceive yourself, I assure you.” “It was not for me you refused him?” “No, father.” A pure flame radiated from her eyes over all her colourless face, and he understood his daughter’s soul. Had he not once already had to read these signs? God was taking his children from him one by one. What a fever of renunciation and self-immolation stirred and burned in them! Must there not be in these successive sacrifices enough to furnish the redemption of the culprit, Maurice? He recalled one summer morning, in the glaring light on the docks at Marseilles, when he had watched the steamer sail away for China with Felicie on board. And he pressed Margaret closer to his trembling heart. “You, too,” he murmured simply. She clasped her arms around his neck, and whispered to him, quite low, with a kiss: “Not yet, father.” “After I am gone?” “Yes.” He held her a moment closer against him, as he had done when she was a little girl in the old days and he had put protecting arms about her. He loved the feeling that she was his yet, but hesitated to accept the delay his daughter’s love imposed on her. Facing the glass in his cabinet, he could see the image of the group they formed. With one stroke it showed the changes that had been wrought in him within one year’s time. “To-morrow,” he reflected, “I shall have saved Maurice, and my task will be finished. It won’t be long after that. I shan’t make old bones.” Bending over the clear face, he pressed his lips there, as a sign of his acceptance. Then, coming back again to what was uppermost in his mind, he banished tenderness, and made his arrangements for the battle. “Have dinner at eight,” he ordered. “I’ve almost two hours ahead of me, time to refresh myself on the details of this brief, which I know pretty well already. I’ll go to bed at nine, and get up at three in the morning. From three to nine, before the opening of court, I’ll get my argument in hand.” “Very well, father. There’s a letter from Lyons from Germaine. Her heart is with us.” “You can read it to me at dinner,” he said. “Charles will be here to-morrow on the one-o’clock train. He can’t come sooner.” “I expected him.” “I’ll leave you now, father.”