Then absorbing political necessities came as a relief to domestic misery.

Then it grew to be the one purpose and pursuit of Danville's life cunningly to shape his course so that he might move safely onward with the advancing revolutionary tide--he cared not whither, as long as he kept his possessions safe and his life out of danger.

His mother, inflexibly true to her Old-World convictions through all peril, might entreat and upbraid, might talk of honor, and courage, and sincerity--he heeded her not, or heeded only to laugh.

As he had taken the false way with his wife, so he was now bent on taking it with the world.
The years passed on; destroying changes swept hurricane-like over the old governing system of France; and still Danville shifted successfully with the shifting times.

The first days of the Terror approached; in public and in private--in high places and in low--each man now suspected his brother.