“Monsieur Rigou, it is I,—­Vaudoyer.”

Jean came round from the porte-cochere and said to Vaudoyer:—­

“Come into the garden; Monsieur has company.”

The company was Sibilet, who, under pretext of discussing the verdict Brunet had just handed in, was talking to Rigou of quite other matters.  He had found the usurer finishing his dessert.  On a square dinner-table covered with a dazzling white cloth—­for, regardless of his wife and Annette who did the washing, Rigou exacted clean table-linen every day—­the steward noted strawberries, apricots, peaches, figs, and almonds, all the fruits of the season in profusion, served in white porcelain dishes on vine-leaves as daintily as at Les Aigues.

Seeing Sibilet, Rigou told him to run the bolts of the inside double-doors, which were added to the other doors as much to stifle sounds as to keep out the cold air, and asked him what pressing business brought him there in broad daylight when it was so much safer to confer together at night.

“The Shopman talks of going to Paris to see the Keeper of the Seals; he is capable of doing you a great deal of harm; he may ask for the dismissal of your son-in-law, and the removal of the judges at Ville-aux-Fayes, especially after reading the verdict just rendered in your favor.  He has turned at bay; he is shrewd, and he has an adviser in that abbe, who is quite able to tilt with you and Gaubertin.  Priests are powerful.  Monseigneur the bishop thinks a great deal of the Abbe Brossette.  Madame la comtesse talks of going herself to her cousin the prefect, the Comte de Casteran, about Nicolas.  Michaud begins to see into our game.”

“You are frightened,” said Rigou, softly, casting a look on Sibilet which suspicion made less impassive than usual, and which was therefore terrific.  “You are debating whether it would not be better on the whole to side with the Comte de Montcornet.”

“I don’t see where I am to get the four thousand francs I save honestly and invest every year, after you have cut up and sold Les Aigues,” said Sibilet, shortly.  “Monsieur Gaubertin has made me many fine promises; but the crisis is coming on; there will be fighting, surely.  Promising before victory and keeping a promise after it are two very different things.”

“I will talk to him about it,” replied Rigou, imperturbably.  “Meantime this is what I should say to you if I were in his place:  ’For the last five years you have taken Monsieur Rigou four thousand francs a year, and that worthy man gives you seven and a half per cent; which makes your property in his hands at this moment over twenty-seven thousand francs, as you have not drawn the interest.  But there exists a private signed agreement between you and Rigou, and the Shopman will dismiss his steward whenever the Abbe Brossette lays that document before his eyes; the abbe will be able to do so after receiving an anonymous letter which will inform him of your