To his utter amazement, his father recoiled from him.  The variable temper of Francois had evidently changed completely during his absence at the village.  A settled scowl of distrust darkened his face as he looked at his son.

“I never shake hands with people who have once doubted me,” he exclaimed, loudly and irritably; “for I always doubt them forever after.  You are a bad son!  You have suspected your father of some infamy that you dare not openly charge him with, on no other testimony than the rambling nonsense of a half-witted, dying old man.  Don’t speak to me!  I won’t hear you!  An innocent man and a spy are bad company.  Go and denounce me, you Judas in disguise!  I don’t care for your secret or for you.  What’s that girl Perrine doing here still?  Why hasn’t she gone home long ago?  The priest’s coming; we don’t want strangers in the house of death.  Take her back to the farmhouse, and stop there with her, if you like; nobody wants you here!”

There was something in the manner and look of the speaker as he uttered these words, so strange, so sinister, so indescribably suggestive of his meaning much more than he said, that Gabriel felt his heart sink within him instantly; and almost at the same moment this fearful question forced itself irresistibly on his mind:  might not his father have followed him to the Merchant’s Table?

Even if he had been desired to speak, he could not have spoken now, while that question and the suspicion that it brought with it were utterly destroying all the re-assuring hopes and convictions of the morning.  The mental suffering produced by the sudden change from pleasure to pain in all his thoughts, reacted on him physically.  He felt as if he were stifling in the air of the cottage, in the presence of his father; and when Perrine hurried on her walking attire, and with a face which alternately flushed and turned pale with every moment, approached the door, he went out with her as hastily as if he had been flying from his home.  Never had the fresh air and the free daylight felt like heavenly and guardian influences to him until now!

He could comfort Perrine under his father’s harshness, he could assure her of his own affection, which no earthly influence could change, while they walked together toward the farmhouse; but he could do no more.  He durst not confide to her the subject that was uppermost in his mind; of all human beings she was the last to whom he could reveal the terrible secret that was festering at his heart.  As soon as they got within sight of the farmhouse, Gabriel stopped; and, promising to see her again soon, took leave of Perrine with assumed ease in his manner and with real despair in his heart.  Whatever the poor girl might think of it, he felt, at that moment, that he had not courage to face her father, and hear him talk happily and pleasantly, as his custom was, of Perrine’s approaching marriage.