“I have found you a wife, find me a partner,” said the tall Cointet with a treacherous smile.
“Lucien is an old school-fellow of mine; we used to be chums. I shall be sure to hear something from him in a week’s time. Have the banns put up, and I will engage to put David in prison. When he is on the jailer’s register I shall have done my part.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the tall Cointet under his breath, “we might have the patent taken out in our name; that would be the thing!”
A shiver ran through the meagre little attorney when he heard those words.
Meanwhile Eve beheld her father-in-law enter with the Abbé Marron, who had let fall a word which unfolded the whole tragedy.
“Here is our curé, Mme. Séchard,” the old man said, addressing his daughter-in-law, “and pretty tales about your brother he has to tell us, no doubt!”
“Oh!” cried poor Eve, cut to the heart; “what can have happened now?”
The cry told so unmistakably of many sorrows, of great dread on so many grounds, that the Abbé Marron made haste to say, “Reassure yourself, madame; he is living.”
Eve turned to the vinegrower.
“Father,” she said, “perhaps you will be good enough to go to my mother; she must hear all that this gentleman has to tell us of Lucien.”