What would they become as wives and mothers, those little girls whom Mademoiselle Rouzaire now led to the Capuchins? When the Church had seized them and held them by their senses, their weakness, and their sufferings, it would never release them; it would employ them as terrible engines of warfare, to demolish men and pervert children. So long as woman, in her ancient contest with man, with respect to unjust laws and iniquitous moral customs, should thus remain the property and the weapon of the Church, social happiness would remain impossible, war would be perpetuated between the disunited sexes. And woman would only at last be a free creature, a free companion for man, disposing of herself and of her happiness for the happiness of her husband and her child, on the day when she should cease to belong to the priest, her present master--he who disorganised and corrupted her. With respect to Marc himself, was it not an unacknowledged fear, the dread of some drama, which might ravage his own household, that had made him tremble and recoil from the prospect of doing his duty? The sudden decision he had taken might mean a struggle at his own hearth, the necessity of doing his duty to those of his own home, even though his heart might bleed cruelly the while. He knew that now; thus there was some heroism in the course he chose with all simplicity, with all enthusiasm for the good, work which he hoped to prosecute. The highest _rôle_ and the noblest in a nascent democracy is that of the poor and scorned elementary schoolmaster, appointed to teach the humble, to train them to be happy citizens, the builders of the future City of Justice and Peace. Marc felt it was so, and he suddenly realised the exact sense of his mission, his apostleship of Truth, that fervent passion to acquire Truth, certain and positive, then cry it aloud and teach it to all, which had ever possessed him. Raising his eyes to the railway station, the young man suddenly perceived that it was past four o'clock. The train which he and his wife were to have taken had gone, and it would be necessary to wait till six, when the next one started. Almost immediately afterwards he saw Geneviève approaching, looking much distressed, and carrying little Louise in her arms in order to get over the ground more rapidly. 'Ah! my friend, you must forgive me, I quite forgot the time,' she exclaimed. 'Grandmother detained me, and seemed so annoyed by my impatience to join you that I ended by no longer noticing how time slipped by.' She had seated herself on the bench beside him, with Louise on her lap. He smilingly inclined his head and kissed the child, who had raised her little hands to pull his beard. And he quietly answered: 'Well, we will wait till six o'clock, my dear. There is nobody to interfere with us, we can remain here. Besides, I have something to tell you.' But Louise wanted to play, and, stamping on her father's thighs, she cast her arms about his neck.