"Yes, sir; I know it is very sad," said little Perrine, lifting her beautiful eyes to the sightless eyes of her grandfather. "Every day I think how sad it is, and I know if they would hold out their arms to welcome me I would run into them so quickly! But suppose they were just as cold and hard to me as they were with my father...." "Had these relations any serious cause to be angry with your father? Did he do anything very bad?" "I cannot think," said little Perrine, "that my father, who was always so good and kind, and who loved me and mother so much, could have ever been bad. He could not have done anything very wrong, and yet his people must have had, in their opinion, serious reasons for being angry with him, it seems to me." "Yes, evidently," said the blind man. "But what they have against him they could not hold against you. The sins of the father should not fall upon the children." "If that could be true!" She said these words in a voice that trembled so with emotion that the blind man was surprised at the depths of this little girl's feelings. "You see," he said, "how in the depths of your heart how much you want their love and affection." "Yes, but how I dread being turned away," she replied. "But why should you be?" he asked. "Have your grandparents any other children beside your father?" "No." "Why shouldn't they be glad that you should come and take the place of the son they have lost? You don't know what it is to be alone in the world." "Yes, I do ... I know only too well what it is," replied Perrine. "Youth who has a future ahead is not like old age, which has nothing before it but Death." She looked at him. She did not take her eyes from his face, for he could not see her. What did his words mean? From the expression of his face little Perrine tried to read the inmost thoughts that stirred this old man's heart. "Well," he said, after waiting a moment, "what do you think you will do?" "I hesitate because I feel so bad about it," she said. "If I could only believe that they would be glad to have me and would not turn me away...." "You know nothing of life, poor little girl," said the old gentleman. "Age should not be alone any more than youth." "Do you think all old people feel like that?" asked Perrine. "They may not think that it is so, but they feel it." "You think so?" she said, trembling, her eyes still fixed on his face. He did not reply directly, but speaking softly as though to himself, he said: "Yes, yes; they feel it...." Then getting up from his seat abruptly, as though to drive away thoughts that made him feel sad, he said in a tone of authority: "Come across to the offices. I wish to go there." CHAPTER XVIII SECRETARY TO M. VULFRAN When would Fabry, the engineer, return? That was the question that Perrine anxiously asked herself, for on that day her role of interpreter to the English machinists would terminate.