e storm, was looking at him, leaning against the wall,
bending down her saintly face, flooded with tears, but proud and beaming
nevertheless with her Bernard's great success. For it was really a
success of sincere human emotion, which a few more words would change
into a triumph. Cries of "Go on, go on!" came from all sides of the
Chamber to reassure and encourage him. But Jansoulet did not speak. He
had only to say: "Calumny has wilfully confused two names. I am called
Bernard Jansoulet, the other Jansoulet Louis." Not a word more was
needed.

But in the presence of his mother, still ignorant of his brother's
dishonour, he could not say it. Respect--family ties forbade it. He
could hear his father's voice: "I die of shame, my child." Would not she
die of shame too, if he spoke? He turned from the maternal smile with a
sublime look of renunciation, then in a low voice, utterly discouraged,
he said:

"Excuse me, gentlemen; this explanation is beyond my power. Order an
investigation of my whole life, open as it is to all, alas! since any
one can interpret all my actions. I swear to you that you will find
nothing there which unfits me to sit among the representatives of my
country."

In the face of this defeat, which seemed to everybody the sudden
crumbling of an edifice of effrontery, the astonishment and
disillusionment were immense. There was a moment of excitement on the
benches, the tumult of a vote taken on the spot, which the Nabob saw
vaguely through the glass doors, as the condemned man looks down from
the scaffold on the howling crowd. Then, after that terrible pause which
precedes a supreme moment, the president made, amid deep silence, the
simple pronouncement:

"The election of M. Bernard Jansoulet is annulled."

Never had a man's life been cut off with less solemnity or disturbance.

Up there in her gallery, Jansoulet's mother understood nothing, except
that the seats were emptying near her, that people were rising and going
away. Soon there was no one else there save the fat man and the lady
in the white hat, who leaned over the barrier, watching Bernard with
curiosity, who seemed also to be going away, for he was putting up
great bundles of papers in his portfolio quite calmly. When they were
in order, he rose and left his place. Ah! the life of public men had
sometimes cruel situations. Gravely, slowly, under the gaze of the whole
assembly, he must descend those steps which he had mounted at the cos