"'We live, madam,' continued your father, 'in terrible times, and I am in such a position that, should it some day come about that I must either send others to the guillotine or face death myself, I would not hesitate to send even you before the revolutionary tribunal. Let these words always be present to your mind, madam, in regulating your conduct henceforth.'
"In these words your father wound up. Such, my child, was his language," concluded Madam Desmarais, burying her tear-bedewed face in her handkerchief.
Charlotte answered not. She was torn with inward struggle against the sad flood of ideas borne upon her by her father's hypocrisy. Brought up in an atmosphere of filial affection and respect, the young girl suffered at being compelled to lower her estimate of her paternal parent. But this last conversation of the lawyer with his wife left no more room for doubt as to his true character.
Having somewhat calmed her tears, Madam Desmarais went on:
"I have now, dear child, too much knowledge of your father's innermost nature. His presence is hateful to me. It would be impossible for me to live with him. Hence, my poor girl, we must part."
"We part!" cried Charlotte, passionately embracing Madam Desmarais and mingling her tears with her mother's: "And where will you go?"
"I shall go back to Lyons, to my cousin's; I have resolved upon that, since I can do nothing here, alas, to add either to your happiness or my brother's safety."
"Let us hope, mother, let us hope," said Charlotte through her tears, after a pause. "Perhaps there is a way for us not to separate, good mother, and also to save uncle. Ah, mother, happiness, and above all the desire to make others whom we love share our happiness, renders the mind quick to invent. Last night, after father and you consented to my marrying John, he and I were alone for a few minutes. Here is what he told me: Before coming here, he had gone to Monsieur Billaud-Varenne, and he learned from this gentleman that father had previously commissioned him to offer my hand to Monsieur St. Just. Thus John learned that father counted on finding in him a buffer against the dangers which he fears, and that this was the motive that led him, in default of Monsieur St. Just, to offer my hand to John. That does not matter; but John also learned from Monsieur Billaud-Varenne that he had said to father: 'Since you so greatly desire to marry your daughter to a good republican, why not give her to John Lebrenn? He is, you say, your pupil; he enjoys the esteem and friendship of the most eminent men of the Revolution.'"
"No doubt your father hoped, in marrying you to St. Just—"
"To build himself a powerful bulwark against possible danger. But Monsieur St. Just not having accepted the alliance, and Monsieur Billaud-Varenne proposing John, father feared to seem to despise a workingman should he refuse him my hand."