“Yes, little girl, he’s the one who takes the Roquevillards’ place there now, and carries on our traditions. The whole place is his, gratis.” His voice sounded bitter for a moment, then he continued again with his story. “His lawyer began speaking at eleven.” “Who was his lawyer, father?” “A Mr. Porterieux, from Lyons. There was no one of the bar in Chambéry who would take the case.” “On your account, father?” “No doubt.” “And what did he dare to say about Maurice?” “He’s a clever man, though, with a very insinuating manner and a kind of cold and calculated violence. He began by tracing a very unflattering portrait of Maurice--a modern young man whom nothing could check, very much imbued with the idea of individual rights; keen to develop his personality and achieve happiness in his own way, whether it trampled down other people’s or not; a young man who would not be bound by the rules of organised society; in short, one of those intellectual anarchists who pass so easily from words and ideas to deeds. ‘Ask his comrades,’ he went on, ‘his friends. They cannot deny that in his daily talk he disparages and tears to pieces the established order of things, and that his special admiration is the pernicious theories of a German philosopher for whom a superior type of humanity, the superman, builds his fortune on the ruin and sorrow of the common lot, the humble and the feeble. And it was not a secret from any one in Chambéry that he was not on good terms with his father, and chafed under his authority.’” “He said that?” murmured Margaret, in a shocked voice. “Yes; I’m giving you the tone of his address. Even from myself he drew an adverse argument. From our family he got another; the accused could not, he said, invoke the excuse of a bad education, a lack of instruction, a bad example, or the extenuating circumstances of an unhappy childhood, which might have spoiled his character forever. I pass over his premeditated and self-interested seduction of Mrs. Frasne.” “Self-interested?” “Yes, in his moral nihilism Maurice coveted at the same time both the wife and the money, unscrupulously. Having thus made the abuse of Mr. Frasne’s confidence seem probable, or believing he had, Mr. Porterieux took up the accusation, and what he did not hesitate to call its material proofs. Mrs. Frasne consented to run away, he said. Her husband was absent, the day propitious, the opportunity unique. Her lover, unprovided with any personal fortune, sought, and had to seek, for some way to defray the expenses of their voyage. He knew that a deposit had been made from the proceeds of the sale of Belvade; he discovered in a memorandum book the secret of the safe; he had the keys given to him, and arranged to be left alone in the office. He took the money and fled to foreign parts with his mistress. Not only was he guilty, but the only one guilty.” “And Mrs. Frasne?”