How he would now have smiled at such a dream had not his tears been flowing! Yet how charming she had shown herself in striving to content him despite the invincible obstacles of race, education, and environment.

She had been a docile pupil, but was incapable of any real progress.

One day she had certainly seemed to draw nearer to him, as though her own sufferings had opened her soul to every charity; but the illusion of happiness had come back, and then she had lost all understanding of the woes of others, and had gone off in the egotism of her own hope and joy.

Did that mean then that this Roman race must finish in that fashion, beautiful as it still often is, and fondly adored but so closed to all love for others, to those laws of charity and justice which, by regulating labour, can henceforth alone save this world of ours?
Then there came another great sorrow to Pierre which left him stammering, unable to speak any precise prayer.

He thought of the overwhelming reassertion of Nature's powers which had attended the death of those two poor children.