“Father,” murmured Margaret softly, “mamma would be so happy.” And the spectators, turning and going out, exchanged their comments on the way. Mr. Latache, winding up his remarks before a little group, shook his head sententiously. “It’s a good rap over the knuckles for Mr. Frasne,” he said. “After being publicly reprimanded by the public minister, he ought to shut up his offices and leave the country.” “He’ll sell La Vigie again,” declared Mr. Paillet. The lady whom Mr. Coulanges was seeing home expressed her delight at the way things had turned out, to take her cavalier down a peg or two, a pastime in which she seemed to find great pleasure. “And the little Sassenay girl will buy it back. She has a big dot. Did you notice the look she gave the young prisoner, the triumphant Maurice? She’s going to marry him.” “Yes, that will be the way of it,” said Mr. Coulanges, gloomily summing things up; “the Roquevillards have always been lucky.” IX THE WILL TO LIVE THE good will of the presiding judge hastened the formalities of liberation, and while the crowd, having left the court-room, massed itself in the space outside the court-house, to watch for Maurice and his defender to come out, and to cheer them, the more enthusiastically because their remorse was tardily shown, Mr. Roquevillard was waiting for his son in the inner court. He was alone, for he had asked Charles Marcellaz to see Mr. Hamel home. The struggle over, he felt tired and worn, and was lost in his meditations. A timid voice called to him: “Father.” “Is it you, Maurice?” Instead of throwing themselves into each other’s arms, quite simply, they stood motionless, as if frozen. The lack of some first gesture is enough sometimes to create separations, to make obstacles. On his son’s face the father read admiration, gratitude, filial piety; on the father’s face the son read love and goodness, but also the new stigmata of weariness and age. They said nothing; sorrowfully, with a shyness they could not overcome. In the street outside they heard the noise of cheers. “Come,” said Mr. Roquevillard brusquely. He led Maurice to the other side of the courtyard, where a gate opened on a public garden, luckily now deserted. He crossed it with rapid steps, hurried quickly over the iron footbridge beneath which rolled the muddy waters of the Leysse, and the two men reached the cemetery presently without having exchanged a word.