With one glance he saw that the bed was untouched, that a drawer had been emptied. He went back to his own room, dressed in haste and ran like a young man, despite his sixty years, to the railway station. The time for the express to Italy must have passed, but there was still a last train in the direction of Geneva. An employee, who recognised him, gave him his information. Maurice had gone away with _her_. They had taken their tickets for Turin. Alone there in the night he gave a groan, like some oak straining at the first blow of the axe. But, like the oak, too, he was full of resistance, and stiffened himself against fate. It was not possible that a whole race, a family, not possible even that one life, could be compromised by a single youthful fault. He would find his son again, sooner or later, and bring him home. Or else fate would take charge of him as of the prodigal son; and as in the parable, too, he would be weak enough to kill the fatted calf on his return, instead of loading him with reproaches. The paternal hearth: there one comes back to dress one’s wounds, certain of not being turned away. A husband may desert his wife, a woman her husband, ungrateful children may desert their father and mother: a father and mother can never abandon their child, even if the whole world should give him up. The town lay as if dead in the moonlight. Mr. Roquevillard’s steps resounded in the deserted streets. From Boigne Street, as he went up, he could see the castle tower clear before him, lengthened by the perspective of the night. A neighbouring tree traced the shadow of its leaves on the façade. In a few hours the hushed city would come to life again, to laugh insultingly at this family drama. When he opened his door a white shadow came to him. It was Margaret. “Father, what is it?” In default of his wife he must share the weight of this trial with Margaret. He thought enough of her not to attempt concealment. “They have gone,” he muttered briefly. “Oh,” she breathed, understanding, and remembering the sad phrase her brother had used to her that evening. Again father and daughter clasped each other to their hearts in a common anguish. Then tenderly he led her to her room and left her. “Let your mother sleep, little girl,” he said. “She always finds out our troubles soon enough.” IV THE VENGEANCE OF MR. FRASNE MR. FRASNE, bundled up in his overcoat on account of the early freshness of the air, and carrying a little bag in his hand, descended from the express in Chambéry at seven in the morning, after an absence of two days, and walked briskly home.