Shadows on the Rock (19 page)

Auclair accompanied him to the door and watched him tread his way up the hill and round the turn of the street. Then he
went back to his desk with the feeling that old feuds were forgotten. He would have a great deal to tell Cécile when he went
to supper there tonight. She would be quicker than anyone to sense the transformation in their old neighbour, who had built
himself an episcopal residence approached by twenty-four stone steps, and who now proposed to spend the rest of his life in
two small rooms in the hospital out on the river Charles. To be sure, the Bishop was a little theatrical in his humility, as
he had been in his grandeur; but that was his way, Auclair reflected, and, after all, nobody can help his way. If a man
admits his mistakes, that is a great deal, when he is a proud man and a Dauphinois — always a stiff-necked race.

While he was closing his shop and changing his coat to go up to his daughter’s house, he thought over much that his
visitor had told him, and he believed that he was indeed fortunate to spend his old age here where nothing changed; to watch
his grandsons grow up in a country where the death of the King, the probable evils of a long regency, would never touch
them.

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Last updated on Tue Jan 11 23:28:57 2011 for
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