If the Simon affair continued to haunt Marc, it was because he was unable to cease occupying himself with it. He had vowed that he would never rest until he should discover the real culprit; and he kept his word, influenced more by passion than by strict duty. On Thursdays, when his afternoons were free, he hastened to Maillebois to call at the Lehmanns' dark and dismal shop in the Rue du Trou. The condemnation of Simon had fallen on that wretched dwelling like a thunderbolt. Public execration seemed to cast the convict's family, his friends, and even the few acquaintances who remained faithful to him, out of the pale of humanity. Lehmann and his wife, who evinced such wretched resignation to their lot, were forsaken by their customers, and would have starved had they not secured some poorly-paid piece-work for Parisian clothiers. But it was particularly Madame Simon, the mournful Rachel, and her little children, Joseph and Sarah, who suffered from the savage hatred assailing their name. It had been impossible for the children to return to school. The town-lads hooted them, pelted them with stones, and one day the little boy came home with his lip badly cut by a missile. As for the mother, who had assumed mourning and whose beauty became the more dazzling in the plain black gown which she always wore, she spent her days in weeping, relying only on some prodigy for salvation. Alone among the inmates of the desolate house, amid the yielding grief of the others, did David remain erect, silent and active, still seeking and still hoping.