“I’ve just come from Mrs. Bercy’s. Raymond was there. ‘A pretty brother you have,’ said Mrs. Bercy to me. It was horrid of her. As for me, I only kept my head down. Then she began again: ‘You know the story the clerks in the Frasne office are telling about him?’ Still I held my tongue. ‘They say your brother wasn’t content with the wife.’ ‘Mamma,’ cried Raymond feebly. But I was already on my feet. ‘Go on, madame, you must,’ I said. And she dared to finish: ‘He took away the cash-box, too.’ Then I said, ‘I forbid you to insult my brother.’ And to Raymond I added: ‘You, sir, who can’t protect me in your own house, may consider yourself free.’ He wanted to keep me back, but I would not listen to anything more, and here I am.” “Dear little girl,” murmured her mother, putting her arms around her. “Oh,” cried Mr. Roquevillard, standing over the two heads, his wife’s and his daughter’s, “people always condemn you thus, without hearing you.” But already Margaret had forgotten her personal troubles in the common sorrow. She rose and went up to her father, gazing earnestly into his eyes. “You, father, in whom I have such confidence, tell me, it isn’t true, is it?” “It’s false,” the invalid assured her. “I hope so,” said the head of the family. “But all the appearances are against him, and he runs the risk of being sentenced.” “Sentenced?” “Yes, sentenced,” replied the lawyer, “and with him all of us that bear his name, all of us who come from the same past with him and are making toward the same future.” He made a movement as if at once to protect the two weeping women and threaten the deserter: “One feeble moment has been enough to wreck the efforts of so many close and solid generations. Oh, let him down there in his shameful flight measure the damage of his treachery! His sister’s betrothal is broken, his brother’s future is spoiled, his mother’s health is shattered, his family’s fortune is compromised, our name spotted and our honour stained! That’s his work! And that is called love! What does it matter whether he has stolen a sum of money! From us he has stolen everything. What is there left to us to-day?” “You,” cried Margaret. “And you will save him.” “God,” said Mrs. Roquevillard, finding a strange serenity in her sorrow. “Have confidence. The worth of a race can never be undone. It will redeem the culprit’s faults.” PART II I THE MAKER OF RUINS OF all the lakes of Lombardy Orta is the least frequented. It is lost in the reputation of the Lago Maggiore like a small boat in the wake of a vessel.