Only Mme. Roland and her sons still looked mournful. She, indeed, was
still shedding a few tears, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, which
she then pressed to her lips to smother her deep sobs.

The doctor murmured:

"He was a good fellow, very affectionate. He often invited us to dine
with him--my brother and me."

Jean, with wide-open, glittering eyes, laid his hand on his handsome
fair beard, a familiar gesture with him, and drew his fingers down it
to the tip of the last hairs, as if to pull it longer and thinner. Twice
his lips parted to utter some decent remark, but after long meditation
he could only say this:

"Yes, he was certainly fond of me. He would always embrace me when I
went to see him."

But his father's thoughts had set off at a gallop--galloping round this
inheritance to come; nay, already in hand; this money lurking behind the
door, which would walk in quite soon, to-morrow, at a word of consent.

"And there is no possible difficulty in the way?" he asked. "No
lawsuit--no one to dispute it?"

Maitre Lecanu seemed quite easy.

"No; my Paris correspondent states that everything is quite clear. M.
Jean has only to sign his acceptance."