The young man had come to his side—a slender, handsome fellow, with an olive cheek, curling hair, and a dark eye both frank and fearless.
"And you, grandpère," he said, touching the old man's hand; "why will not you go out and seek some change from your dull life? What sorrow is it that seems to press so hard on you to-day, and why do you think it necessary to give me words of warning? What shadow has come between us?"
"What shadow!" echoed the old man, peering at him from under his bent brows. "None of my throwing, boy; but do you forget what day it is? A dark anniversary for me, if not for you; and I scarcely thought you would have let it pass without a thought. Nay, I need not wish its darkness to lie on you for ever either; but, Antoine, remember you are all I have left. In my silent, lonely life, and this dull house—and I always a reserved and seeming loveless man—you may well pine for something more, some lighter, gayer time, and ever brood over the means to find it. But remember, my son, that you are by birth above the paltry pleasures of the herd; that you can come to me and ask for money if you covet some pastime that befits you; that you need conceal nothing from me—have no friend that I may not know also."
Antoine's face flushed for a moment. It was seldom, indeed, that his grandfather spoke in a voice so tender and so yearning. Almost insensibly his arm stole round the old man's neck.
"What is it?" he said again. "What have I done?"
"I accuse you of nothing, lad," replied his grandfather, gently disengaging himself. "I thought perhaps your tastes may have needed more money. You do not gamble, Antoine; you are never out late, for I can hear you come in, and the sound of your violin penetrates to my room, so that I know when you are at home. I don't expect you to be always with me; I would not have it so; but when you want money—"
"Grandfather," said the young man hastily, "I know not what you mean. Have I ever asked for more than the allowance you make me? Do I complain? Except for the two or three bills that you have paid for me of your own free-will, do I exceed your bounty?"
"Talk not of bounty, boy," said the elder, flushing in his turn. "Antoine, could you read my heart you would see that all I desire is to show to you the love that the world would give me no credit for, that my own children even, thy—thy mother, Antoine, and—and Sara—ah! leave me just now, my dear; I am surely growing old and childish, but I have still enough of the old manhood left not to wish even my grandson to witness my weakness. Leave me, boy, and let us meet at supper in my room. I shall go out presently to see old Pierre, and, if I can, to bring him home with me. Poor old faithful Pierre!"
The young man slowly left the warehouse and ascended the stairs into the house, when he shut himself in his own room, and flung himself into a chair, in profound dejection.
He had scarcely done so when a man came from the upper warehouse, a room whence silk—both warp and woof—was given out to the workpeople to be wound on bobbins or spread into the web before it was fixed in the loom. After every such operation this silk was brought back to be reweighed, and only when the piece was finished in a woven fabric did it find its way into the lower warehouse, there to be measured and inspected. Access was gained to this upper warehouse by a door in a back street, inscribed with the words "A. Dormeur. Weavers' Entrance." And thence the workpeople, of whom there were many each day waiting their turn, went across a paved yard and into a passage terminating in a kind of square lobby, at the bottom of the deep well which lighted the gloomy staircase by a glazed window from the roof of the house.