The lawyer begged his guests to be seated. He seemed to reflect a moment, his head bent. He had aged greatly in the past year. The hair of his head and his short, stiff moustache were turning grey. Two lines appeared around his mouth; his neck beneath his collar was thin and hollow. His cheeks were more dull in tint and the flesh less firm. All these signs of physical failing Margaret never saw without an aching at her heart. What a difference there was between the man who sat there now at his table, lost in his thoughts, and that other form robustly erect and joyful outlined against the sky on the hilltop at last summer’s vintage. When he stood up, with a single gesture he was himself again. Beneath the deep arch of his eyebrows his gaze shone out imperiously as of old, difficult to withstand, fixing itself on the faces of his hearers with an embarrassing precision. The moment he began to speak his new attitude showed that he was the head and front of the family, not easily put down or overborne by many trials. “I have called you together,” he began, “because our family is in danger. Now, we all bear the same name, excepting Charles Marcellaz, who stands in the place of a son to me because he represents my daughter Germaine. Felicie and Hubert are too far away to be consulted, but their lives testify to such self-sacrifice that their opinions need not be asked. I know they are disinterested.” “You have good news of the captain?” inquired Mrs. Camille Roquevillard. Her nephew’s uniform had always impressed her favourably, and she was incapable of thinking of more than one person at a time. Margaret answered her. “No news for some time, and the last was not very good. He had come down with fever.” “Court opens December 6th,” began Mr. Roquevillard again, “about three weeks from now. Maurice’s case comes up at the beginning of the session.” “It’s only a formality,” said Leo, who was proud of managing a rather large factory at twenty-eight, and affected a practical and positive turn of mind that reduced everything to its net results. “An acquittal is certain.” The old lawyer closed the young man’s mouth with a categorical “No!” His daughter shivered. The men looked at each other, surprised and anxious. “How do you mean? Why is it ‘No’?” “Since he’s not guilty.” “Since it was Mrs. Frasne who took the money.” The last remark came from Charles Marcellaz, mentioning the common foe by name. “The wretch!” added the widow, raising her eyes to the ceiling, and inwardly regretting that Mrs. Frasne’s name had been uttered in Margaret’s presence. She divided women simply into two categories, the virtuous and the wanton, though she did not investigate the origin of the children that she rescued. Unlike so many intellectual and emancipated women of to-day, her horizon was limited, but not her charity or devotion.