The Frontier by Maurice LeBlanc

The tragedy enacted that night and morning was so harsh, so virulent and so swift that it left the inmates of the Old Mill as though stunned. Instead of uniting them in a common emotion, it scattered them, giving each of them an impression of discomfort and uneasiness.

In Philippe, this took the form of a state of torpor that kept him asleep until the next morning. He awoke, however, in excellent condition, but with an immense longing for solitude. In reality, he shrank from finding himself in the presence of his father and his wife.

He went out, therefore, very early, across the woods and fields, stopped at an inn, climbed the Ballon de Vergix and did not come home until lunch-time. He was very calm by then and quite master of himself.

To men like Philippe, men endowed with upright natures and generous minds, but not prone to waste time in reflecting upon the minor cases of conscience that arise in daily life, the sense of duty performed becomes, at critical periods, a sort of standard by which they judge their actions. This sense Philippe experienced in all its fulness. Placed by a series of abnormal circumstances between the necessity of betraying Suzanne or the necessity of swearing upon oath to a thing which he did not know, he felt that he was certainly entitled to lie. The lie seemed just and natural. He did not deny the fault which he had committed in succumbing to the young girl's fascinations and wiles: but, having committed the fault, he owed it to Suzanne to keep it secret, whatever the consequences of his discretion might be. There was no excuse that permitted him to break silence.

He found, on the drawing-room table, the three newspapers which were taken at the Old Mill: the _Eclaireur des Vosges_; a Paris evening-paper; and the _Boersweilener Zeitung_, a morning-paper printed in German, but French in tone and inspiration. A glance at these completely reassured him. Amid the confusion of the first reports devoted to the Jorance case, his own part passed almost unnoticed. The _Eclaireur des Vosges_ summoned up his evidence in a couple of lines. When all was said, he was and would be no more than a supernumerary.

"A walking gentleman, at the outside," he murmured, with satisfaction.

"Yes, at the outside. It's your father and M. Jorance who play the star parts."

Marthe had entered and caught his last words, which he had spoken aloud, and was answering him with a laugh.

She put her arm around his neck with the fond gesture usual to her and said:

"Yes, Philippe, you need not worry yourself. Your evidence is of no importance and cannot influence events in any way. You can be very sure of that."

Their faces were quite close together and Philippe read nothing but gaiety and affection in Marthe's eyes.

He understood that she had ascribed his behaviour of the previous day, his first, false version, his reticence and his confusion to scruples of conscience and vague apprehensions. Anxious about the consequences of the business and dreading lest his testimony might complicate it, he had tried to avoid the annoyance of giving evidence.

"I believe you're right," he said, with a view to confirming her in her mistake. "Besides, is the business so very serious?"

They talked together for a few minutes and, gradually, while watching her, he changed the subject to the Jorances:

"Has Suzanne been this morning?"

Marthe appeared astonished:

"Suzanne? " she said. "Don't you know? . Oh, of course, you were asleep last evening. Suzanne spent the night here."

He turned aside his head, to hide the flush that spread over his features, and he said:

"Oh, she slept here, did she?"

"Yes. M. Morestal wishes her to stay with us until M. Jorance's return."