With his fleshless, eager fingers Toupillier clutched the glass, emptied it at a gulp, and exclaimed:—­

“Ah! that’s a fine drop, that is! though you’ve watered it.”

“You mustn’t say that, uncle; I went and bought it myself of Pere Legrelu, and I’ve given it you quite pure.  But you let me simmer the rest; the doctor said I might then give you all you wanted.”

Toupillier resigned himself with a shrug of the shoulders.  At the end of fifteen minutes, the infusion being in condition to serve, Madame Cardinal brought him, without further appeal, a full cup of it.

The avidity with which the old pauper drank it down prevented him from noticing at first that the wine was drugged; but as he swallowed the last drops he tasted the sickly and nauseating flavor, and flinging the cup on the bed he cried out that some one was trying to poison him.

“Poison! nonsense!” said the fishwife, pouring into her own mouth a few drops of that which remained in the bottle, declaring to the old man that if the wine did not seem to him the same as usual, it was because his mouth had a “bad taste to it.”

Before the end of the dispute, which lasted some time, the narcotic began to take effect, and at the end of an hour the sick man was sound asleep.

While idly waiting for Cerizet, an idea took possession of the Cardinal’s mind.  She thought that in view of their comings and goings with the treasure, it would be well if the vigilance of the Perrache husband and wife could be dulled in some manner.  Consequently, after carefully flinging the refuse poppy-heads into the privy, she called to the portress:—­

“Madame Perrache, come up and taste his wine.  Wouldn’t you have thought to hear him talk he was ready to drink a cask of it?  Well, a cupful satisfied him.”

“Your health!” said the portress, touching glasses with the Cardinal, who was careful to have hers filled with the unboiled wine.  Less accomplished as a gourmet than the old beggar, Madame Perrache perceived nothing in the insidious liquid (cold by the time she drank it) to make her suspect its narcotic character; on the contrary, she declared it was “velvet,” and wished that her husband were there to have a share in the treat.  After a rather long gossip, the two women separated.  Then, with the cooked meat she had provided for herself, and the remains of the Roussillon, Madame Cardinal made a repast which she finished off with a siesta.  Without mentioning the emotions of the day, the influence of one of the most heady wines of the country would have sufficed to explain the soundness of her sleep; when she woke darkness was coming on.

Her first care was to give a glance at her patient; his sleep was restless, and he was dreaming aloud.

“Diamonds,” he said; “those diamonds?  At my death, but not before.”

“Gracious!” thought Madame Cardinal, “that was the one thing lacking, —­diamonds! that he should have diamonds!”