Appreciating the futility of bearing himself otherwise, since his retreat was already blocked by a couple of gendarmes, Caron submitted to the inevitable.
He mounted leisurely to his study, and the ruin that stared him in the eyes was enough to have daunted the boldest of men.

Yet, to do him justice, he was more concerned at the moment with the consequences this turn of affairs might have for Mademoiselle than with his own impending downfall.

That he had Cecile to thank for his apprehension he never doubted.

Yet it was a reflection that he readily dismissed from his mind.

In such a pass as he now found himself none but a weakling could waste time and energy in bewailing the circumstances that had conspired to it.