“What do you mean?” cried poor Agathe.

“Her trey has turned up,” he said, producing the list of numbers written on a bit of paper, such as the officials of the lottery put by hundreds into little wooden bowls on their counters.

Joseph read the list.  Agathe read the list.  The Descoings read nothing; she was struck down as by a thunderbolt.  At the change in her face, at the cry she gave, old Desroches and Joseph carried her to her bed.  Agathe went for a doctor.  The poor woman was seized with apoplexy, and she only recovered consciousness at four in the afternoon; old Haudry, her doctor, then said that, in spite of this improvement, she ought to settle her worldly affairs and think of her salvation.  She herself only uttered two words:—­

“Three millions!”

Old Desroches, informed by Joseph, with due reservations, of the state of things, related many instances where lottery-players had seen a fortune escape them on the very day when, by some fatality, they had forgotten to pay their stakes; but he thoroughly understood that such a blow might be fatal when it came after twenty years’ perseverance.  About five o’clock, as a deep silence reigned in the little appartement, and the sick woman, watched by Joseph and his mother, the one sitting at the foot, the other at the head of her bed, was expecting her grandson Bixiou, whom Desroches had gone to fetch, the sound of Philippe’s step and cane resounded on the staircase.

“There he is! there he is!” cried the Descoings, sitting up in bed and suddenly able to use her paralyzed tongue.

Agathe and Joseph were deeply impressed by this powerful effect of the horror which violently agitated the old woman.  Their painful suspense was soon ended by the sight of Philippe’s convulsed and purple face, his staggering walk, and the horrible state of his eyes, which were deeply sunken, dull, and yet haggard; he had a strong chill upon him, and his teeth chattered.

“Starvation in Prussia!” he cried, looking about him.  “Nothing to eat or drink?—­and my throat on fire!  Well, what’s the matter?  The devil is always meddling in our affairs.  There’s my old Descoings in bed, looking at me with her eyes as big as saucers.”

“Be silent, monsieur!” said Agathe, rising.  “At least, respect the sorrows you have caused.”

“Monsieur, indeed!” he cried, looking at his mother.  “My dear little mother, that won’t do.  Have you ceased to love your son?”

“Are you worthy of love?  Have you forgotten what you did yesterday?  Go and find yourself another home; you cannot live with us any longer, —­that is, after to-morrow,” she added; “for in the state you are in now it is difficult—­”

“To turn me out,—­is that it?” he interrupted.  “Ha! are you going to play the melodrama of ‘The Banished Son’?  Well done! is that how you take things?  You are all a pretty set!  What harm have I done?  I’ve cleaned out the old woman’s mattress.  What the devil is the good of money kept in wool?  Do you call that a crime?  Didn’t she take twenty thousand francs from you?  We are her creditors, and I’ve paid myself as much as I could get,—­that’s all.”