And stopping short before his daughter, he continued roughly: 'Have you also had your mind and heart spoilt that you no longer love me?... At each of your visits to your grandmother's I am put on trial--is it not so?--and infamous things are said about me in order to detach you from me. It is a question--eh?--of saving you from the damned and restoring you to the good friends of those ladies, who will turn you into a hypocrite and a lunatic.... And you listen to my enemies, and yield to their constant obsession by forsaking me.' Louise, in despair, her eyes full of tears, raised her hands entreatingly. 'Papa, papa, calm yourself!' she cried. 'I assure you that you are mistaken, mamma has never allowed anything evil to be said about you before me. Grandmother, no doubt, does not like you, and she would often do well to keep quiet when I am there. It would be telling a falsehood to say that she does not do all she can to get me to join mamma and live with her. But I swear to you that neither she nor any of the others has anything to do with what I propose.... You know very well that I never tell you stories. It is I myself who have thought it all over, and come to the conclusion that our separation would be a good and sensible thing.' 'A good thing--that you should forsake me! Why, it would kill me!' 'No, you will understand--and you are so brave!... Sit down and listen to me.' She gently compelled him to seat himself again in front of her. And, taking his hands in hers caressingly, she reasoned with him like a shrewd little woman. 'Everybody at grandmother's,' said she, 'is convinced that you alone turn me away from religion. You weigh on me, it is said, you impose your ideas on me, and if I could only escape from you I should go to confession to-morrow and make my first Communion.... So why should I not prove to them that they are mistaken? To-morrow I will go and live at grandmother's, and then they will see for themselves, they will have to admit how mistaken they have been, for nothing will prevent me from giving them always the same answer: "I have promised not to make my first Communion before I am twenty, in order that the full responsibility of such an action may be mine only, and I shall keep my promise, I shall wait."' Marc made a gesture of doubt. 'My poor child,' said he, 'you don't know them, they will have broken down your resistance and have conquered you in a few weeks' time. You are still only a little girl.' In her turn Louise rebelled. 'Ah! it is not nice of you, papa, to think there is so little seriousness in me! I am a little girl, it is true, but your little girl, and proud of it!'