CHAPTER VII

AT the leisurely pace of a man who meditated, Monsieur de Corbal took his way home up the hill through the April dusk. He did not relish the thought of dying. Even less, however, did he relish the thought of the horrible _mésalliance_ by which he might save his life, which shows that Chauvinière was right and that Monsieur de Corbal’s republican sentiments were not of the proper depth. The notion of supplying future Corbals with such an ancestress as Filomène was entirely repulsive to him, however much he may have …