ut this is nothing. In a few hours David
will be put in prison; will you allow him to go?"

"What does he owe?"

"Something like five or six thousand francs, besides the amounts owing
to you and to his wife."

The speech roused all the old man's suspicions at once. He looked
round the little blue-and-white bedroom at the touching scene before
his eyes--at a beautiful woman weeping over a cradle, at David bowed
down by anxieties, and then again at the lawyer. This was a trap set
for him by that lawyer; perhaps they wanted to work upon his paternal
feelings, to get money out of him? That was what it all meant. He took
alarm. He went over to the cradle and fondled the child, who held out
both little arms to him. No heir to an English peerage could be more
tenderly cared for than this little one in that house of trouble; his
little embroidered cap was lined with pale pink.

"Eh! let David get out of it as best he may. I am thinking of this
child here," cried the old grandfather, "and the child's mother will
approve of that. David that knows so much must know how to pay his
debts."

"Now I will just put your meaning into plain language," said
Petit-Claud ironically. "Look here, Papa Sechard, you are jealous of
your son. Hear the truth! you put David into his present position by
selling the business to him for three times its value. You ruined him
to make an extortionate bargain! Yes, don't you shake your head; you
sold the newspaper to the Cointets and pocketed all the proceeds, and
that was as much as the whole business was worth. You bear David a
grudge, not merely because you have plundered him, but because, also,
your own son is a man far above yourself. You profess to be
prodigiously fond of your grandson, to cloak your want of feeling for
your son and his wife, because you ought to pay down money _hic et nunc_
for them, while you need only show a posthumous affection for your
grandson. You pretend to be fond of the little fellow, lest you should
be taxed with want of feeling for your own flesh and blood. That is
the bottom of it, Papa Sechard."

"Did you fetch me over to hear this?" asked the old man, glowering at
his lawyer, his daughter-in-law, and his son in turn.

"Monsieur!" protested poor Eve, turning to Petit-Claud, "have you
vowed to ruin us? My husband had never uttered a word against his
father." (Here the old man looked cunningly at her.) "David has told
me scores of times that you loved him in your