“You are right, my little girl,” he said.

Rosine started and flushed, for she had not expected this; she raised her grateful eyes to his, and their look seemed to say:  “You have come back to me at last.”

After the brief repast they usually separated; each to eat out his heart in solitude.  Clerambault sat before his writing-table and wept, his face hidden in his hands.  Rosine’s look had pierced through to his suffering heart; his soul lost, stifled for so long, had come to be as it was before the war.  Oh, the look in her eyes!...

He listened, wiping away his tears; his wife had locked herself into Maxime’s room as she did every evening, and was folding and unfolding his clothes, arranging the things left behind....  He went into the room where Rosine sat alone by the window, sewing.  She was absorbed in thought, and did not hear him coming till he stood before her; till he laid his grey head on her shoulder and murmured:  “My little girl.”

Then her heart melted also.  She took the dear old head between her hands, with its rough hair, and answered: 

“My dear father.”

Neither needed to ask or to explain why he was there.  After a long silence, when he was calmer, he looked at her and said: 

“It seems as if I had waked up from a frightful dream.” ...  But she merely stroked his hair, without speaking.

“You were watching over me, were you not?...  I saw it....  Were you unhappy?” ...

She just bowed her head not daring to look at him.  He stooped to kiss her hands, and raising his head he whispered: 

“My good angel.  You have saved me!”

When he had gone back to his room she stayed there without moving, filled with emotion, which kept her for long, still, with drooping head, her hands clasped on her knees.  The waves of feeling that flowed through her almost took away her breath.  Her heart was bursting with love, happiness, and shame.  The humility of her father overcame her....  And all at once a passionate impulse of tender, filial piety broke the bonds which paralysed her soul and body, as she stretched out her arms towards the absent, and threw herself at the foot of her bed, thanking God, beseeching Him to give all the suffering to her, and happiness to the one she loved.

The God to whom she prayed did not give ear; for it was on the head of this young girl that he poured the sweet sleep of forgetfulness; but Clerambault had to climb his Calvary to the end.

Alone in his room, the lamp put out, in darkness, Clerambault looked within himself.  He was determined to pierce to the bottom of his timid, lying soul which tried to hide itself.  On his head he could still feel the coolness of his daughter’s hand, which had effaced all his hesitation.

He would face this monster Truth, though he were torn by its claws which never relax, once they have taken hold.

With a firm hand, in spite of his anguish, he began to tear off in bleeding fragments the covering of mortal prejudices, passions, and ideas foreign to his real nature, which clung to him.