"Oh, sir," cried Perrine, "if you could see it you would never permit your work girls to live there, never, never."
"Go on with your story," he said abruptly.
She told him how she had discovered the tiny island and how the idea had come to her to take possession of the cabin.
"I am not accustomed to being afraid," she said, with a wan little smile flitting across her beautiful face.
"You are speaking of that cabin in the valley there a little to the side of the road to Saint-Pipoy, on the left, are you not?" asked Monsieur Vulfran.
"That belongs to me and my nephews use it. Was it there that you slept?"
"I not only slept there, but I worked there and I ate there, and I even gave a dinner to Rosalie, and she can tell you about it," said little Perrine eagerly, for now that she had told him her story she wanted him to know everything. "I did not leave the cabin until you sent for me to go to Saint-Pipoy, and then you told me to stay there so as to be on hand to interpret for the machinists. And now tonight I have taken a lodging again at Mother Françoise's, but now I can pay for a room all to myself."
"Were you rich then, that you were able to invite a friend to dinner?" asked the blind man.
"If I only dare tell you," said Perrine timidly.
"You can tell me everything," said the blind man.
"I may take up your time just to tell you a story about two little girls?" asked little Perrine.
"Now that I cannot use my time as I should like," said the blind man sadly, "it is often very long, very long ... and empty."
A shade passed over her grandfather's face. He had so much; there were men who envied him--and yet how sad and barren was his life. When he said that his days were "empty" Perrine's heart went out to him. She also, since the death of her father and mother, knew what it was for the days to be long and empty, nothing to fill them but the anxiety, the fatigue, and the misery of the moment. No one to share them with you, none to uphold you, or cheer you. He had not known bodily fatigue, privations and poverty. But they are not the only trials to be borne, there are other sorrows in this world from which one suffers. And it was those other sorrows that had made him say those few words in such a sad, sad tone; the memory of which made this old blind man bend his head while the tears sprang into his sightless eyes. But no tears fell. Perrine's eyes had not left his face; if she had seen that her story did not interest him, she would have stopped at once, but she knew that he was not bored. He interrupted her several times and said: