“Eugene is suffering, poor lad. I wonder what the priest is saying,” murmured Mrs. Hardy.
At last the conversation was over. The expression of hope and animation that had illumined the boy’s countenance when he greeted the curé had all died away. He was composed now, and almost sullen.
“All is over,” he said with a despairing gesture; “my uncle renounces me.”
The curé, who was listening eagerly to him, caught the word “renounce.”
“Eugene,” he interposed gravely, “thou deceivest also thyself and thy friends. Willst thou explain?”
Eugene turned to the Hardys, and said in a dull voice, “My grand-uncle offers me a pittance which I do not receive unless I go to France—not to live with him,” bitterly, “ah, no, but with monsieur the curé.”
“It seems to me from what I have heard you say,” remarked the sergeant, “that you would not care to take up your abode with your uncle.”
“I would never live with him,” said Eugene proudly; “yet he should offer to have me inhabit the château which should be mine.”
“Would you not like to live with this gentleman?” asked Mrs. Hardy in a tense voice.
Eugene turned his pain-stricken face toward her. When the curé had first appeared, the lad had immediately assumed a patronizing air toward the two people who had been as adopted parents to him. Now, however, his pride was all gone. His grand expectations from his uncle were not to be realized. He felt himself to be a poor, despised boy.