Old Grandet told his nephew plainly that his father was dead, and even showed him a paragraph already in the papers referring to the ruin and suicide of the unhappy man—­so quickly is such news spread abroad.

For the moment, his penniless state was nothing to the young man; the loss of his father was the only grief.

Old Grandet let him alone, and in a day or two Charles gathered up strength to face the situation.

Mme. Grandet and Eugenie were full of tender sympathy for the unhappy young man, and this sympathy in Eugenie’s case ripened into love.  One day, when Eugenie passed her cousin’s chamber, the door stood ajar; she thrust it open, and saw that Charles had fallen asleep in his chair.  She entered and found out from a letter her cousin had written to Annette, which she read as it lay on the table, that he was in want of money—­for old Grandet was resolved to do nothing for his nephew beyond paying his passage to Nantes.  The next night she brought him all her store of gold coins, worth six thousand francs.  Her confidence and devoted affection touched Charles deeply.  He accepted the money, and in return gave into her keeping a small leather box containing portraits of his father and mother, richly set in gold.  Eugenie promised to guard this box until he returned.

For it was decided that Charles Grandet must go to the Indies to seek his fortune.  He sold his jewels and finery, and paid his personal debts in Paris, and waited on at Saumur till the ship should be ready to sail for Nantes.

And in those few weeks came the springtime of love for Eugenie.

Old Grandet was too busy to trouble about his nephew, who was so shortly to be got rid of, and both Nanon and Mme. Grandet liked and pities the young man.

Charles Grandet, on his side, was conscious that his Parisian friends would not have shown him a like kindness, and the purity and truth of Eugenie’s love were something he had not hitherto experienced.

The cousins would snatch a few moments together in the early morning, and once, only a few days before his departure, they met in the long, dark passage at the foot of the staircase.  “Dear cousin, I cannot expect to return for many years,” Charles said sadly.  “We must not consider ourselves bound in any way.”

“You love me?” was all Eugenie asked.  And on his reply, she added:  “Then I will wait for you, Charles.”

Presently his arms were round her waist.  Eugenie made no resistance, and, pressed to his heart, received her lover’s kiss.

“Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother; he can marry you,” said Charles.

Thus the lovers vowed themselves to each other.  Then came the terrible hour of parting, and Charles Grandet sailed from Nantes for the Indies; and the old house at Saumur suddenly seemed to Eugenie to have become very empty and bare indeed.

III.—­M.  Grandet’s Discovery