“People are insulting us,” she began.
“Who?”
“I’ve just come from Mrs. Bercy’s. Raymond was there. ‘A pretty brother you have,’ said Mrs. Bercy to me. It was horrid of her. As for me, I only kept my head down. Then she began again: ‘You know the story the clerks in the Frasne office are telling about him?’ Still I held my tongue. ‘They say your brother wasn’t content with the wife.’ ‘Mamma,’ cried Raymond feebly. But I was already on my feet. ‘Go on, madame, you must,’ I said. And she dared to finish: ‘He took away the cash-box, too.’ Then I said, ‘I forbid you to insult my brother.’ And to Raymond I added: ‘You, sir, who can’t protect me in your own house, may consider yourself free.’ He wanted to keep me back, but I would not listen to anything more, and here I am.”
“Dear little girl,” murmured her mother, putting her arms around her.
“Oh,” cried Mr. Roquevillard, standing over the two heads, his wife’s and his daughter’s, “people always condemn you thus, without hearing you.”
But already Margaret had forgotten her personal troubles in the common sorrow. She rose and went up to her father, gazing earnestly into his eyes.
“You, father, in whom I have such confidence, tell me, it isn’t true, is it?”
“It’s false,” the invalid assured her.
“I hope so,” said the head of the family. “But all the appearances are against him, and he runs the risk of being sentenced.”
“Sentenced?”