“Well?” La Cibot came back to say.

“Your gentleman is a monster.  He is leaving everything to the Crown.  Now, you cannot plead against the Crown. . . .  The will cannot be disputed. . . .  We are robbed, ruined, spoiled, and murdered!”

“What has he left to me?”

“Two hundred francs a year.”

“A pretty come-down! . . .  Why, he is a finished scoundrel.”

“Go and see,” said Fraisier, “and I will put your scoundrel’s will back again in the envelope.”

While Mme. Cibot’s back was turned, Fraisier nimbly slipped a sheet of blank paper into the envelope; the will he put in his pocket.  He next proceeded to seal the envelope again so cleverly that he showed the seal to Mme. Cibot when she returned, and asked her if she could see the slightest trace of the operation.  La Cibot took up the envelope, felt it over, assured herself that it was not empty, and heaved a deep sigh.  She had entertained hopes that Fraisier himself would have burned the unlucky document while she was out of the room.

“Well, my dear M. Fraisier, what is to be done?”

“Oh! that is your affair!  I am not one of the next-of-kin, myself; but if I had the slightest claim to any of that” (indicating the collection), “I know very well what I should do.”

“That is just what I want to know,” La Cibot answered, with sufficient simplicity.

“There is a fire in the grate——­” he said.  Then he rose to go.

“After all, no one will know about it, but you and me——­” began La Cibot.

“It can never be proved that a will existed,” asserted the man of law.

“And you?”

“I? . . .  If M. Pons dies intestate, you shall have a hundred thousand francs.”

“Oh yes, no doubt,” returned she.  “People promise you heaps of money, and when they come by their own, and there is talk of paying they swindle you like—­” “Like Elie Magus,” she was going to say, but she stopped herself just in time.

“I am going,” said Fraisier; “it is not to your interest that I should be found here; but I shall see you again downstairs.”

La Cibot shut the door and returned with the sealed packet in her hand.  She had quite made up her mind to burn it; but as she went towards the bedroom fireplace, she felt the grasp of a hand on each arm, and saw—­Schmucke on one hand, and Pons himself on the other, leaning against the partition wall on either side of the door.

La Cibot cried out, and fell face downwards in a fit; real or feigned, no one ever knew the truth.  This sight produced such an impression on Pons that a deadly faintness came upon him, and Schmucke left the woman on the floor to help Pons back to bed.  The friends trembled in every limb; they had set themselves a hard task, it was done, but it had been too much for their strength.  When Pons lay in bed again, and Schmucke had regained strength to some extent, he heard a sound of sobbing.  La Cibot, on her knees, bursting into tears, held out supplicating hands to them in very expressive pantomime.