The evening before, when dinner was ready, Madame Descoings and Agathe expected Philippe.  They waited dinner till seven o’clock.  Agathe always went to bed at ten; but as, on this occasion, she wished to be present at the midnight mass, she went to lie down as soon as dinner was over.  Madame Descoings and Joseph remained alone by the fire in the little salon, which served for all, and the old woman asked the painter to add up the amount of her great stake, her monstrous stake, on the famous trey, which she was to pay that evening at the Lottery office.  She wished to put in for the doubles and singles as well, so as to seize all chances.  After feasting on the poetry of her hopes, and pouring the two horns of plenty at the feet of her adopted son, and relating to him her dreams which demonstrated the certainty of success, she felt no other uneasiness than the difficulty of bearing such joy, and waiting from mid-night until ten o’clock of the morrow, when the winning numbers were declared.  Joseph, who saw nothing of the four hundred francs necessary to pay up the stakes, asked about them.  The old woman smiled, and led him into the former salon, which was now her bed-chamber.

“You shall see,” she said.

Madame Descoings hastily unmade the bed, and searched for her scissors to rip the mattress; she put on her spectacles, looked at the ticking, saw the hole, and let fall the mattress.  Hearing a sigh from the depths of the old woman’s breast, as though she were strangled by a rush of blood to the heart, Joseph instinctively held out his arms to catch the poor creature, and placed her fainting in a chair, calling to his mother to come to them.  Agathe rose, slipped on her dressing-gown, and ran in.  By the light of a candle, she applied the ordinary remedies,—­eau-de-cologne to the temples, cold water to the forehead, a burnt feather under the nose,—­and presently her aunt revived.

“They were there is morning; HE has taken them, the monster!” she said.

“Taken what?” asked Joseph.

“I had twenty louis in my mattress; my savings for two years; no one but Philippe could have taken them.”

“But when?” cried the poor mother, overwhelmed, “he has not been in since breakfast.”

“I wish I might be mistaken,” said the old woman.  “But this morning in Joseph’s studio, when I spoke before Philippe of my stakes, I had a presentiment.  I did wrong not to go down and take my little all and pay for my stakes at once.  I meant to, and I don’t know what prevented me.  Oh, yes!—­my God!  I went out to buy him some cigars.”

“But,” said Joseph, “you left the door locked.  Besides, it is so infamous.  I can’t believe it.  Philippe couldn’t have watched you, cut open the mattress, done it deliberately,—­no, no!”

“I felt them this morning, when I made my bed after breakfast,” repeated Madame Descoings.