“It is all over!  The old witch has got the priests at him,” thought Ramin, inwardly groaning at his own folly in allowing himself to be forestalled.

“You cannot see Monsieur to-night,” sharply said Marguerite, as he attempted to pass.

“Alas! is my excellent friend so very ill?” asked Ramin, in a mournful tone.

“Sir,” eagerly said the clergyman, catching him by the button of his coat, “if you are indeed the friend of that unhappy man, do seek to bring him into a more suitable frame of mind.  I have seen many dying men, but never so much obstinacy, never such infatuated belief in the duration of life.”

“Then you think he really is dying,” asked Ramin; and, in spite of the melancholy accent he endeavored to assume, there was something so peculiar in his tone, that the priest looked at him very fixedly as he slowly replied,

“Yes, air, I think he is.”

“Ah!” was all Monsieur Ramin said; and as the clergyman had now relaxed his hold of the button, Ramin passed in spite of the remonstrances of Marguerite, who rushed after the priest.  He found Monsieur Bonelle in bed and in a towering rage.

“Oh!  Ramin, my friend,” he groaned, “never take a housekeeper, and never let her know you have any property.  They are harpies, Ramin,—­harpies! such a day as I have had; first, the lawyer, who comes to write down ‘my last testamentary dispositions,’ as he calls them; then the priest, who gently hints that I am a dying man.  Oh, what a day!”

“And did you make your will, my excellent friend?” softly asked Monsieur Ramin, with a keen look.

“Make my will?” indignantly exclaimed the old man; “make my will? what do you mean, sir? do you mean to say I am dying?”

“Heaven forbid!” piously ejaculated Ramin.

“Then why do you ask me if I had been making my will?” angrily resumed the old man.  He then began to be extremely abusive.

When money was in the way, Monsieur Ramin, though otherwise of a violent temper, had the meekness of a lamb.  He bore the treatment of his host with the meekest patience, and having first locked the door so as to make sure that Marguerite would not interrupt them, he watched Monsieur Bonelle attentively, and satisfied himself that the Excellent Opportunity he had been ardently longing for had arrived:  “He is going fast,” he thought; “and unless I settle the agreement to-night, and get it drawn up and signed to-morrow, it will be too late.”

“My dear friend,” he at length said aloud, on perceiving that the old gentleman had fairly exhausted himself and was lying panting on his back, “you are indeed a lamentable instance of the lengths to which the greedy lust of lucre will carry our poor human nature.  It is really distressing to see Marguerite, a faithful, attached servant, suddenly converted into a tormenting harpy by the prospect of a legacy!  Lawyers and priests flock around you like birds of prey, drawn hither by the scent of gold!  Oh, the miseries of having delicate health combined with a sound constitution and large property!”