"I have always wished to go there."
"It is a place where one can live cheaply," replied the old man.
"Is our father going away?" cried Felicie.
Monsieur de Solis entered, bringing Jean.
"You must leave him with me to-day," said Balthazar, putting his son
beside him. "I am going away to-morrow, and I want to bid him
good-bye."
Emmanuel glanced at Marguerite, who held down her head. It was a
gloomy day for the family; every one was sad, and tried to repress
both thoughts and tears. This was not an absence, it was an exile. All
instinctively felt the humiliation of the father in thus publicly
declaring his ruin by accepting an office and leaving his family, at
Balthazar's age. At this crisis he was great, while Marguerite was
firm; he seemed to accept nobly the punishment of faults which the
tyrannous power of genius had forced him to commit. When the evening
was over, and father and daughter were again alone, Balthazar, who
throughout the day had shown himself tender and affectionate as in the
first years of his fatherhood, held out his hand and said to
Marguerite with a tenderness that was mingled with despair,--
"Are you satisfied with your father?"
"You are worthy of HIM," said Marguerite, pointing to the portrait of
Van Claes.
The next morning Balthazar, followed by Lemulquinier, went up to the
laboratory, as if to bid farewell to the hopes he had so fondly
cherished, and which in that scene of his toil were living things to
him.
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