“I beg you not to deprive us of your aid,” he said.
“I am very sorry, indeed, to disappoint you, believe me,” answered Battard.
“Then,” said the father of the accused, deliberately and without any show of emotion, “I’ll ask you for the papers in the case. I want especially the written report of the police commissioner, the abstract of the deposition, the terms of the arrest for defalcation.”
This disinvestiture completed the offence to Mr. Battard’s pride. He did not know how to yield to entreaties, but by a very human contradiction neither did he resign himself gracefully to having people supersede him. He took leave of his two colleagues with badly disguised irritation. Outside the office, on the steps of the entrance door, his host got hold of his hand almost by force, and shook it, thanking him warmly for having consented to efface himself. But in this friendly demonstration Mr. Battard only saw the last affront of all, and he ran about town injuring the Roquevillards’ cause in the public mind by telling people of the father’s mental aberration, and the probable conviction of the son to-morrow.
Mr. Hamel could not dissemble his sadness at the departure; his doubts and anxiety, which his age made more grievous, appeared plainly. Was it not very imprudent to dismiss wilfully this pastmaster of the assizes? Were they not only too likely to pay for this imprudence? Why make this eleventh-hour change, and stir up trouble and disorganisation in their camp? He formulated these criticisms in a firm and courteous vein, but plainly they were superfluous. He put an end to them, and added on a melancholy note:
“My friend, you came in just now with your face illuminated, as if with some inner inspiration. I knew by looking at you that you would not listen to any one. Where had you been?”
“To La Vigie,” replied Mr. Roquevillard, who had borne the old man’s reproaches respectfully. “The dead spoke to me there. They did not want a charlatan to weigh their reputation against the faults of one descendant.”
“The dead?”
“Yes, my dead. The dead who founded my race, the dead who have maintained it. They shall be the guerdon of our house in to-morrow’s trial. From the first of my name, down to my firstborn Hubert, they have sacrificed so much in the common good; would you have their sacrifices not counted?”
Mr. Hamel reflected, then rose. “I believe in the law of reversion, and I understand. But will the jurors?”