nd necessary. Clerambault clung despairingly to this
buoy during the succeeding nights, feeling that if his hold gave way
he should go under. More than ever he insisted on the holiness of the
cause; he would not even discuss it; but little by little his fingers
slipped, he settled lower with every movement, for each new statement
of the justice of his cause roused a voice in his conscience which
said:

"Even if you were twenty thousand times more right in this struggle,
is your justification worth the disasters it costs? Does justice
demand that millions of innocents should fall, a ransom for the sins
and the errors of others? Is crime to be washed out by crime?
or murder by murder? And must your sons be not only victims but
accomplices, assassinated and assassins?..."

He looked back at the last visit of his son, and reflected on their
last talks together. How many things were clear to him now, which he
had not understood at the time! Maxime's silence, the reproach in his
eyes. The worst of all was when he recognised that he had understood,
at the time, when his son was there, but that he would not admit it.

This discovery, which had hung over him like a dark cloud for
weeks,--this realisation of inward falsehood,--crushed him to the
earth.

Until the actual crisis was upon them, Rosine Clerambault seemed
thrown into the shade. Her inward life was unknown to the others, and
almost to herself; even her father had scarcely a glimpse of it. She
had lived under the wing of the warm, selfish, stifling family life,
and had few friends or companions of her own age, for her parents
stood between her and the world outside, and she had grown up in their
shadow.

As she grew older if she had wished to escape she would not have
dared, would not have known how; for she was shy outside the
family circle, and could hardly move or talk; people thought her
insignificant. This she knew; it wounded her self-respect, and
therefore she went out as little as possible, preferring to stay at
home, where she was simple, natural and taciturn. This silence did not
arise from slowness of thought, but from the chatter of the others.
As her father, mother, and brother were all exuberant talkers, this
little person by a sort of reaction, withdrew into herself, where she
could talk freely.

She was fair, tall, and boyishly slender, with pretty hair, the locks
always straying over her cheeks. Her mouth was rather large and
serious, the