ollowed his every movement with tender solicitude, he took charge of
the servant of science very much as a mother takes care of her child,
and even seemed to protect him, because in the vulgar details of life,
to which Balthazar gave no thought, he actually did protect him. These
old men, wrapped in one idea, confident of the reality of their hope,
stirred by the same breath, the one representing the shell, the other
the soul of their mutual existence, formed a spectacle at once tender
and distressing.

When Marguerite and Monsieur Conyncks arrived, they found Claes living
at an inn. His successor had not been kept waiting, and was already in
possession of his office.

CHAPTER XV

Through all the preoccupations of science, the desire to see his native
town, his house, his family, agitated Balthazar's mind. His daughter's
letters had told him of the happy family events; he dreamed of crowning
his career by a series of experiments that must lead to the solution
of the great Problem, and he awaited Marguerite's arrival with extreme
impatience.

The daughter threw herself into her father's arms and wept for joy. This
time she came to seek a recompense for years of pain, and pardon for the
exercise of her domestic authority. She seemed to herself criminal, like
those great men who violate the liberties of the people for the safety
of the nation. But she shuddered as she now contemplated her father
and saw the change which had taken place in him since her last visit.
Monsieur Conyncks shared the secret alarm of his niece, and insisted on
taking Balthazar as soon as possible to Douai, where the influence
of his native place might restore him to health and reason amid the
happiness of a recovered domestic life.

After the first transports of the heart were over,--which were far
warmer on Balthazar's part than Marguerite had expected,--he showed a
singular state of feeling towards his daughter. He expressed regret at
receiving her in a miserable inn, inquired her tastes and wishes, and
asked what she would have to eat, with the eagerness of a lover; his
manner was even that of a culprit seeking to propitiate a judge.

Marguerite knew her father so well that she guessed the motive of this
solicitude; she felt sure he had contracted debts in the town which he
wished to pay before his departure. She observed him carefully for
a time, and saw the human heart in all its nakedness. Balthazar had
dwindled from his true sel