Silent and deadly pale, Gabriel poured some of the cider from the pitcher on the table into a drinking-cup, and gave it to the old man. Slight as the stimulant was, its effect on him was almost instantaneous. His dull eyes brightened a little, and he went on in the same whispering tones as before: “He pulled the food out of his knapsack rather in a hurry, so that some of the other small things in it fell on the floor. Among these was a pocketbook, which your father picked up and gave him back; and he put it in his coat-pocket--there was a tear in one of the sides of the book, and through the hole some bank-notes bulged out. I saw them, and so did your father (don’t move away, Gabriel; keep close, there’s nothing in me to shrink from). Well, he shared his food, like an honest fellow, with us; and then put his hand in his pocket, and gave me four or five livres, and then lay down before the fire to go to sleep. As he shut his eyes, your father looked at me in a way I didn’t like. He’d been behaving very bitterly and desperately toward us for some time past, being soured about poverty, and your mother’s illness, and the constant crying out of you children for more to eat. So when he told me to go and buy some wood, some bread, and some wine with money I had got, I didn’t like, somehow, to leave him alone with the stranger; and so made excuses, saying (which was true) that it was too late to buy things in the village that night. But he told me in a rage to go and do as he bid me, and knock the people up if the shop was shut. So I went out, being dreadfully afraid of your father--as indeed we all were at that time--but I couldn’t make up my mind to go far from the house; I was afraid of something happening, though I didn’t dare to think what. I don’t know how it was, but I stole back in about ten minutes on tiptoe to the cottage; I looked in at the window, and saw--O God! forgive him! O God! forgive me!--I saw--I--more to drink, Gabriel! I can’t speak again--more to drink!” The voices in the next room had ceased; but in the minute of silence which now ensued, Gabriel heard his sisters kissing Perrine, and wishing her good-night. They were all three trying to go asleep again.