"Is it private?"
"Yes ... and very serious," Philippe declared.
"Nonsense!"
"Very serious, as you will see in a moment, father.... It's about a position in which I find myself placed, a horrible position which I don't know how to get out of, unless ..."
He went no further. Acting under an instinctive impulse, thrown off his balance by the arrival of the examining-magistrate and by a sudden vision of the events to come, he had appealed to his father. He wanted to speak, to say the words that would deliver him. What words? He did not quite know. But anything, anything rather than give false evidence and affix his signature to a lying deposition!
He stammered at first, while his brain refused to act, seeking in vain for an acceptable solution. How was he to stop on the downward course along which he was being dragged by a combination of hostile forces, accidents, coincidences and implacable, trifling facts? How was he to break through the circle which a cruel fate was doing its utmost to trace around him?
It suddenly burst in upon him that the only possible way out lay in proclaiming the immediate truth, in bluntly revealing his conduct.
He shuddered with disgust. What! Accuse Suzanne! Was that the half-formed idea that inspired him, unknown to himself? Had he really thought of ruining her in order that he might be saved? It was now that he first realized the full nature of his predicament, for he would a thousand times rather have died than dishonour the girl, even in his father's eyes alone.
Morestal, who had finished dressing, chaffed him:
"Is that all you wanted to say?"