“I shall go up this very evening,” ambiguously replied Monsieur Ramin.

He kept his promise, and found Monsieur Bonelle in bed, groaning with pain, and in the worst of tempers.

“What poisoning doctor did you send?” he asked, with an ireful glance; “I want no doctor, I am not ill; I will not follow his prescription; he forbade me to eat; I will eat.”

“He is a very clever man,” said the visitor.  “He told me that never in the whole course of his experience has he met with what he called so much ‘resisting power’ as exists in your frame.  He asked me if you were not of a long-lived race.”

“That is as people may judge,” replied Monsieur Bonelle.  “All I can say is, that my grandfather died at ninety, and my father at eighty-six.”

“The doctor owned that you had a wonderfully strong constitution.”

“Who said I hadn’t?” exclaimed the invalid feebly.

“You may rely on it, you would preserve your health better if you had not the trouble of these vexatious lodgers.  Have you thought about the life annuity?” said Ramin as carelessly as he could, considering how near the matter was to his hopes and wishes.

“Why, I have scruples,” returned Bonelle, coughing.  “I do not wish to take you in.  My longevity would be the ruin of you.”

“To meet that difficulty,” quickly replied the mercer, “we can reduce the interest.”

“But I must have high interest,” placidly returned Monsieur Bonelle.

Ramin, on hearing this, burst into a loud fit of laughter, called Monsieur Bonelle a sly old fox, gave him a poke in the ribs, which made the old man cough for five minutes, and then proposed that they should talk it over some other day.  The mercer left Monsieur Bonelle in the act of protesting that he felt as strong as a man of forty.

Monsieur Ramin felt in no hurry to conclude the proposed agreement.  “The later one begins to pay, the better,” he said, as he descended the stairs.

Days passed on, and the negotiation made no way.  It struck the observant tradesman that all was not right.  Old Marguerite several times refused to admit him, declaring her master was asleep:  there was something mysterious and forbidding in her manner that seemed to Monsieur Ramin very ominous.  At length a sudden thought occurred to him:  the housekeeper—­wishing to become her master’s heir—­had heard his scheme and opposed it.  On the very day that he arrived at this conclusion, he met a lawyer, with whom he had formerly had some transactions, coming down the staircase.  The sight sent a chill through the mercer’s commercial heart, and a presentiment—­one of those presentiments that seldom deceive—­told him it was too late.  He had, however, the fortitude to abstain from visiting Monsieur Bonelle until evening came; when he went up, resolved to see him in spite of all Marguerite might urge.  The door was half-open, and the old housekeeper stood talking on the landing to a middle-aged man in a dark cassock.