“It was pure curiosity!” she sobbed, when she saw that Pons and Schmucke were paying attention to her proceedings.  “Pure curiosity; a woman’s fault, you know.  But I did not know how else to get a sight of your will, and I brought it back again—­”

“Go!” said Schmucke, standing erect, his tall figure gaining in height by the full height of his indignation.  “You are a monster!  You dried to kill mein goot Bons!  He is right.  You are worse than a monster, you are a lost soul!”

La Cibot saw the look of abhorrence in the frank German’s face; she rose, proud as Tartuffe, gave Schmucke a glance which made him quake, and went out, carrying off under her dress an exquisite little picture of Metzu’s pointed out by Elie Magus.  “A diamond,” he had called it.  Fraisier downstairs in the porter’s lodge was waiting to hear that La Cibot had burned the envelope and the sheet of blank paper inside it.  Great was his astonishment when he beheld his fair client’s agitation and dismay.

“What has happened?”

“This has happened, my dear M. Fraisier.  Under pretence of giving me good advice and telling me what to do, you have lost me my annuity and the gentlemen’s confidence. . . .”

One of the word-tornadoes in which she excelled was in full progress, but Fraisier cut her short.

“This is idle talk.  The facts, the facts! and be quick about it.”

“Well; it came about in this way,”—­and she told him of the scene which she had just come through.

“You have lost nothing through me,” was Fraisier’s comment.  “The gentlemen had their doubts, or they would not have set this trap for you.  They were lying in wait and spying upon you. . . .  You have not told me everything,” he added, with a tiger’s glance at the woman before him.

“I hide anything from you!” cried she—­“after all that we have done together!” she added with a shudder.

“My dear madame, I have done nothing blameworthy,” returned Fraisier.  Evidently he meant to deny his nocturnal visit to Pons’ rooms.

Every hair on La Cibot’s head seemed to scorch her, while a sense of icy cold swept over her from head to foot.

“What?” . . . she faltered in bewilderment.

“Here is a criminal charge on the face of it. . . .  You may be accused of suppressing the will,” Fraisier made answer drily.

La Cibot started.

“Don’t be alarmed; I am your legal adviser.  I only wished to show you how easy it is, in one way or another, to do as I once explained to you.  Let us see, now; what have you done that this simple German should be hiding in the room?”

“Nothing at all, unless it was that scene the other day when I stood M. Pons out that his eyes dazzled.  And ever since, the two gentlemen have been as different as can be.  So you have brought all my troubles upon me; I might have lost my influence with M. Pons, but I was sure of the German; just now he was talking of marrying me or of taking me with him—­it is all one.”