He took a railway-guide from the table and turned up the station at Langoux. The new strategic line passed through Langoux, the line which follows the Vosges and runs down to Belfort and Switzerland. He found that he could reach Bâle and sleep at Zurich that same evening.
He stood up and looked around him, with his heart wrung at the thought of going away like that, without bidding good-bye to any one. Marthe had not answered his letter and remained invisible. His father had turned him out and would never forgive him. He must go away by stealth, like a malefactor. "Well," he murmured, thinking of the act which he was on the point of accomplishing, "it's better so. In any case and in spite of everything, I was bound, now that war has been declared, to appear a miscreant and a renegade in my father's eyes. Have I the right to rob him of the least affectionate word?"
Mme. Morestal came up from the garden and he heard her moaning:
"War! Oh, heaven, war, like last time! And your poor father forced to keep his bed! Ah, Philippe, it's the end of all things!"
She shifted a few chairs in their places, wiped the table-cover with her apron and, when the drawing-room seemed tidy to her eyes, went to the door:
"Perhaps he is awake.... What will he want to do, when he hears?... If only he keeps quiet! A man of his age ..."
Philippe went up to her, in an instinctive burst of confidence:
"You know I'm going, mother?"
She replied:
"You're going? Well, yes, you are right. I dare say I shall persuade Marthe to come back to you...."