s to his temples and blurted out:

"Still, suppose I were mistaken! Suppose I had branched off more to the
right ... and ..."

He interrupted himself, cast his eyes around him, rising to his feet:

"It's impossible! One can't make as big a blunder as that, short of
being mad! How could I have? I was thinking of one thing only; I kept
saying to myself, 'I must remain in France, I must keep to the left of
the line.' And I did keep to it, hang it all! It is absolutely
certain.... What then? Am I to deny the truth in order to please them?"

And Philippe, who had never ceased watching him, replied, within
himself:

"Why not, father? What would that little falsehood signify, compared
with the magnificent result that would be obtained? If you would tell a
lie, father, or if only you would assert so fatal a truth less forcibly,
France could give way without the least disgrace, since it is your
evidence alone that compels her to make her demand! And, in this way,
you would have saved your country...."

But he did not speak. His father was guided by a conception of duty
which Philippe knew to be as lofty and as legitimate as his own. What
right had he to expect his father to act according to his, Philippe's,
conscience? What to one of them would be only a fib would be to the
other, to old Morestal, a criminal betrayal of his own side. Morestal,
when giving his evidence, was speaking in the name of France. And France
does not tell lies.

"If there is a possible solution," Philippe said to himself, "my father
is not the man to be asked to provide it. My father represents a mass of
intangible ideas, principles and traditions. But I, I, I ... what can I
do? What is my particular duty? What is the object for which I ought to
make in spite of every obstacle?"

Twenty times over, he was on the point of exclaiming:

"My evidence was false, father. I was not there. I was with Suzanne!"

What was the use? It meant dishonouring Suzanne; and the implacable
march of events would continue just the same. Now that was the only
thing that mattered. Every individual suffering, every attack of
conscience, every theory, all vanished before the tremendous catastrophe
with which humanity was threatened and before the task that devolved
upon men like himself, men emancipated from the past and free to act in
accordance with a new conception of duty.

*
* *

In the aftern