“Father, it’s you at last,” she cried.
Mr. Roquevillard, who had walked fast, wiped away the perspiration that gathered on his forehead despite the cold.
“Margaret, have those gentlemen come?” he asked.
“Yes. They’re waiting for you.”
“Good. I’ll go and see them.”
In the lighted hall father and daughter found themselves face to face and were surprised at the change each noted in the other. From having left each other morally discouraged and fagged out, they were surprised now, each of them, to find on the other’s face a sort of victorious serenity over fear and sorrow, a spiritual illumination that made them firm and confident. The father had heard the call of the past rising to him from the depths of the eternal generations. The daughter had heard the voice of God.
VI
THE DEFENDER
MR. ROQUEVILLARD burst into his office like a whirlwind, and his two colleagues rose from their discussion immediately and came forward to meet him. They could not conceal their surprise on finding, instead of a man struck down by despair over the death of his oldest son, the Roquevillard of other times, the man so redoubtable at the bar, to whom one went with difficult and stirring cases, on whose clear judgment and firm conclusions one could always depend. Here again was the man whose dominating character one chafed under sometimes as one quailed before his piercing glance.
“I have made you wait,” he said easily, dispensing with excuses.
In his presence, Mr. Hamel, with his crown of white hair, his delicate features, and the slightly affected and distinguished air that composed his venerable whole, and Mr. Battard, with his spreading beard, his air of assuming everywhere the first rank, seemed, nevertheless, both to recognise their leader; one with good will, the other grudgingly. All assumptions of superiority fell away before these other and more incontestable tokens.