"Ah, count also on my co-operation, my dear John," exclaimed Madam Desmarais, her eyes filling with tears. "I now understand the grandeur, the usefulness, the holiness of the task which you impose upon yourself for the benefit of your apprentices and workmen. You seek to educate them; you charge yourself with the molding of their characters!"
Gertrude, entering at that moment, said to the young workman:
"Monsieur Desmarais knows that you are here, Monsieur Lebrenn. He asks you to wait for him. He will be in directly."
"Mother," said Charlotte sadly, "grievous as is the dissimulation, I believe there is every necessity for us not to inform father as yet of our resolve to live apart from him after my wedding."
"I am not of your opinion, my dear Charlotte," objected John, whose candidness would have suffered under the reticence. "At any rate, we have time to consider the matter. But it is necessary to decide, before Monsieur Desmarais comes in on how to convey to Monsieur Hubert the proposal I made to you, dear mother."
"Dear John," replied Madam Desmarais, "I have a secure means of communication with him. But should my letter indeed be intercepted, and your name be found in it, do you not fear to be compromised?"
"Should they seize your letter, it will not injure me in the slightest. The attempt I make is loyal. I accept proudly the responsibility attached to it, the same as, this very morning, I took upon myself the responsibility, still more serious on the face of it, of giving an Emigrant who had sought refuge with me the means, not of escaping justice—my duty would not permit that—but of leaving our house. Thanks to me, the ex-Count of Plouernel was able, without molestation, to gain a safe retreat."
"That great seigneur who once so shamefully outraged my husband?" cried Madam Desmarais in surprise.
"Monsieur Plouernel," Charlotte asked, "the descendant of that ancient family of warrior Franks which has done so much injury to your plebeian stock?"
"Precisely. By a strange fatality, he picked a fight with me last night. I thought I had killed him, but he was only stunned. This morning when Monsieur Plouernel had sufficiently regained his senses and strength, I conducted him to the threshold of our house. The porter, recognizing my voice, opened the street door to the Emigrant. Now let the justice of men be done; I can not denounce an enemy defeated and wounded."