"Yes, a great deal."
"You must not desert me."
"Oh, I ..."
"I am going to confide Marie-Louise and Philippe to you. You will watch over them, from afar, you will see them sometimes. If you have any worries to bear on their account, you will bear them for me."
"You know that quite well."
"Au revoir, Mother, I shall come back."
"May God watch over you!"
The door closed. He had forgotten Fanchette who was awaiting her turn, wiping her eyes on her apron. Mme. Derize came back, with a slower step, into the deserted little drawing-room. She reached the window, to see her son once more, as he was leaving the house. She was thinking:
"He did not come for me, nor for Elizabeth, nor for the children. Some day, however, I feel it, I am sure, he will come back to them, to us. Perhaps it will not be for a very long time. Let us hope that the evil he will have done will not be irretrievable."
Albert, looking up, saw a light in the window which framed a black figure. But he did not hear his mother, who, bending down, was calling to him in a beseeching voice.