eagle beak and his bright eyes still
sparkling with the fire of youth. And he wished to go off at once.
"What!" said he, "you have known all this since yesterday, and have still
kept me here at the risk of my compromising you even more than I had done
already! You must forgive me, I did not think of the worry I might cause
you, I thought that everything would be satisfactorily arranged. I must
thank you both--yourself and Guillaume--for the few days of quietude that
you have procured to an old vagabond and madman like myself."

Then, as they tried to prevail on him to remain until the following
morning, he would not listen to them. There would be a train for Brussels
about midnight, and he had ample time to take it. He refused to let Morin
accompany him. No, no, said he, Morin was not a rich man, and moreover he
had work to attend to. Why should he take him away from his duties, when
it was so easy, so simple, for him to go off alone? He was going back
into exile as into misery and grief which he had long known, like some
Wandering Jew of Liberty, ever driven onward through the world.

When he took leave of the others at ten o'clock, in the little sleepy
street just outside the house, tears suddenly dimmed his eyes. "Ah! I'm
no longer a young man," he said; "it's all over this time. I shall never
come back again. My bones will rest in some corner over yonder." And yet,
after he had affectionately embraced Pierre and Guillaume, he drew
himself up like one who remained unconquered, and he raised a supreme cry
of hope. "But after all, who knows? Triumph may perhaps come to-morrow.
The future belongs to those who prepare it and wait for it!"

Then he walked away, and long after he had disappeared his firm, sonorous
footsteps could be heard re-echoing in the quiet night.

BOOK IV.

I. PIERRE AND MARIE

ON the mild March morning when Pierre left his little house at Neuilly to
accompany Guillaume to Montmartre, he was oppressed by the thought that
on returning home he would once more find himself alone with nothing to
prevent him from relapsing into negation and despair. The idea of this
had kept him from sleeping, and he still found it difficult to hide his
distress and force a smile.

The sky was so clear and the atmosphere so mild that the brothers had
resolved to go to Montmartre on foot by way of the outer boulevards. Nine
o'clock was striking when they set out. Guillaume for his part was very
gay a