When Fouchard saw that he had nothing more to fear he said in a matter-of-course way, as if he had seen his son only the day before: 

“It’s you—­ All right, I’ll come down.”

His descent was a matter of time.  He could be heard inside the house opening locked doors and carefully fastening them again, the maneuvers of a man determined to leave nothing at loose ends.  At last the door was opened, but only for a few inches, and the strong grasp that held it would let it go no further.

“Come in, thou! and no one besides!”

He could not turn away his nephew, however, notwithstanding his manifest repugnance.

“Well, thou too!”

He shut the door flat in Jean’s face, in spite of Maurice’s entreaties.  But he was obdurate.  No, no! he wouldn’t have it; he had no use for strangers and robbers in his house, to smash and destroy his furniture!  Finally Honore shoved their comrade inside the door by main strength and the old man had to make the best of it, grumbling and growling vindictively.  He had carried his gun with him all this time.  When at last he had ushered the three men into the common sitting-room and had stood his gun in a corner and placed the candle on the table, he sank into a mulish silence.

“Say, father, we are perishing with hunger.  You will let us have a little bread and cheese, won’t you?”

He made a pretense of not hearing and did not answer, turning his head at every instant toward the window as if listening for some other band that might be coming to lay siege to his house.

“Uncle, Jean has been a brother to me; he deprived himself of food to give it to me.  And we have seen such suffering together!”

He turned and looked about the room to assure himself that nothing was missing, not giving the three soldiers so much as a glance, and at last, still without a word spoken, appeared to come to a decision.  He suddenly arose, took the candle and went out, leaving them in darkness and carefully closing and locking the door behind him in order that no one might follow him.  They could hear his footsteps on the stairs that led to the cellar.  There was another long period of waiting, and when he returned, again locking and bolting everything after him, he placed upon the table a big loaf of bread and a cheese, amid a silence which, once his anger had blown over, was merely the result of cautious cunning, for no one can ever tell what may come of too much talking.  The three men threw themselves ravenously upon the food, and the only sound to be heard in the room was the fierce grinding of their jaws.

Honore rose, and going to the sideboard brought back a pitcher of water.

“I think you might have given us some wine, father.”

Whereupon Fouchard, now master of himself and no longer fearing that this anger might lead him into unguarded speech, once more found his tongue.

“Wine!  I haven’t any, not a drop!  The others, those fellows of Ducrot’s, ate and drank all I had, robbed me of everything!”