rang upon the box as a famished tiger might spring upon a
sleeping child.

"What's this?" he said, snatching the treasure and carrying it to the
window. "Gold, good gold!" he cried. "All gold,--it weighs two pounds!
Ha, ha! Charles gave you that for your money, did he? Hein! Why didn't
you tell me so? It was a good bargain, little one! Yes, you are my
daughter, I see that--" Eugenie trembled in every limb. "This came from
Charles, of course, didn't it?" continued the old man.

"Yes, father; it is not mine. It is a sacred trust."

"Ta, ta, ta, ta! He took your fortune, and now you can get it back."

"Father!"

Grandet took his knife to pry out some of the gold; to do this, he
placed the dressing-case on a chair. Eugenie sprang forward to recover
it; but her father, who had his eye on her and on the treasure too,
pushed her back so violently with a thrust of his arm that she fell upon
her mother's bed.

"Monsieur, monsieur!" cried the mother, lifting herself up.

Grandet had opened his knife, and was about to apply it to the gold.

"Father!" cried Eugenie, falling on her knees and dragging herself close
to him with clasped hands, "father, in the name of all the saints and
the Virgin! in the name of Christ who died upon the cross! in the name
of your eternal salvation, father! for my life's sake, father!--do not
touch that! It is neither yours nor mine. It is a trust placed in my
hands by an unhappy relation: I must give it back to him uninjured!"

"If it is a trust, why were you looking at it? To look at it is as bad
as touching it."

"Father, don't destroy it, or you will disgrace me! Father, do you
hear?"

"Oh, have pity!" said the mother.

"Father!" cried Eugenie in so startling a voice that Nanon ran upstairs
terrified. Eugenie sprang upon a knife that was close at hand.

"Well, what now?" said Grandet coldly, with a callous smile.

"Oh, you are killing me!" said the mother.

"Father, if your knife so much as cuts a fragment of that gold, I will
stab myself with this one! You have already driven my mother to her
death; you will now kill your child! Do as you choose! Wound for wound!"

Grandet held his knife over the dressing-case and hesitated as he looked
at his daughter.

"Are you capable of doing it, Eugenie?" he said.

"Yes, yes!" said the mother.

"She'll do it if she says so!" cried Nanon. "Be reasonable, monsieur,
for once in your life."

The old man looked at the gold and then at his d