Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/496

476 be able to utilise all this as a means of a brilliant reconciliation with M. de la Mole, who has a weakness for the little seminarist.

The settlement of the lawsuit had been signed some weeks previously, and the abbé Pirard had left Besançon after having duly mentioned Julien's mysterious birth, on the very day when the unhappy man tried to assassinate madame de Rênal in the church of Verrières.

There was only one disagreeable event between himself and his death which Julien anticipated. He consulted Fouqué concerning his idea of writing to M. the Procureur-General asking to be exempt from all visits. This horror at the sight of a father, above all at a moment like this, deeply shocked the honest middle-class heart of the wood merchant.

He thought he understood why so many people had a passionate hatred for his friend. He concealed his feelings out of respect for misfortune.

"In any case," he answered coldly, "such an order for privacy would not be applied to your father."