“If David can prove that he has succeeded, I shall not hesitate to go into partnership with him, and reckon his discovery as half the capital,” the tall Cointet told him.
The suspicious old man learned a good deal over nips of brandy with the work-people, and something more by questioning Petit-Claud and feigning stupidity; and at length he felt convinced that the Cointets were the real movers behind Métivier; they were plotting to ruin Séchard’s printing establishment, and to lure him (Séchard) on to pay his son’s debts by holding out the discovery as a bait. The old man of the people did not suspect that Petit-Claud was in the plot, nor had he any idea of the toils woven to ensnare the great secret. A day came at last when he grew angry and out of patience with the daughter-in-law who would not so much as tell him where David was hiding; he determined to force the laboratory door, for he had discovered that David was wont to make his experiments in the workshop where the rollers were melted down.
He came downstairs very early one morning and set to work upon the lock.
“Hey! Papa Séchard, what are you doing there?” Marion called out. (She had risen at daybreak to go to her papermill, and now she sprang across to the workshop.)
“I am in my own house, am I not?” said the old man, in some confusion.
“Oh, indeed, are you turning thief in your old age? You are not drunk this time either——I shall go straight to the mistress and tell her.”
“Hold your tongue, Marion,” said Séchard, drawing two crowns of six francs each from his pocket. “There——”
“I will hold my tongue, but don’t you do it again,” said Marion, shaking her finger at him, “or all Angoulême shall hear of it.”
The old man had scarcely gone out, however, when Marion went up to her mistress.
“Look, madame,” she said, “I have had twelve francs out of your father-in-law, and here they are——”