“I’ll tell you later. Let me stay here now and think it over. It will involve making a great sacrifice.” “Make it quickly, father.” The girl’s eyes burned with such a light that all her pure and generous soul shone through it. “Dear little girl,” he murmured proudly. She smiled at him, with the rare smile of those who have lived long with sorrow. “Father,” she said, “I have always thought you would be the one to defend him.” II THE FAMILY COUNCIL “AM I in the way?” asked Margaret. She stopped on the threshold of her father’s office, seeing such a numerous company gathered there. “I was going to look for you,” said her father. “You belong here with us.” A tall, withered old man, with his coat closely buttoned up, who was leaning on the mantelpiece, beneath which a bright fire was burning, threw out in a high head voice: “In my time they didn’t admit women to the family councils.” “It isn’t a woman that’s compromised the family, however,” came the brisk reply from the depths of an armchair, where sat a rather vigorous, well-matured lady dressed in black. But it was purely a discussion of principles with both of them, for they promptly made truce and welcomed the girl with a good grace. Margaret greeted each member of the family circle in turn. First came her great-uncle Stephen Roquevillard, who, though older than Mr. Hamel, carried the burden of his eighty years quite lightly; then her aunt by marriage, Mrs. Camille Roquevillard; then her cousin Leo, the latter’s son, a young manufacturer at Pontcharra in Dauphiné; and finally Charles Marcellaz, who had arrived that morning from Lyons. Outside the windows a heavy sky, charged with snow, seemed to hang low above the castle, almost crushing it. Already the clouds swung round the turret, and the leafless trees stretched their supplicating branches upward. Only the ivy on the tower of the archives preserved its tint of eternal spring. The room, in spite of its four windows, seemed filled with the bitterness of the day. The book-cases, the portraits, the landscape by Hugard, seemed to wear a look of sadness. The latest law reports, piled on a stand, had not been bound, like those of the preceding years. The big table, covered with briefs, one of them still open, displaying its citations and extracts from the statutes, showed a continuity of work which even the gravest cares had not interrupted; while a fresh bunch of chrysanthemums, placed before a photograph of Mrs. Valentine Roquevillard, revealed the daily care given it by a woman’s hand.