“And that lease he knocked you out of in spite of his promises, have you forgotten that?” asked the little old man.  “Besides, are we not aiming for his happiness, though the obstinate fellow persists in thwarting our benevolent intentions?”

“It is true,” said Cerizet, “that the result will absolve me.  Yes, I’ll go resolutely along the ingenious path you’ve traced out for me.  But there’s one thing more:  I can’t fling my revelation at Thuillier’s head at the very first; I must have time to prepare the way for it, but that security will have to be paid in immediately.”

“Listen to me, Monsieur Cerizet,” said du Portail, in a tone of authority; “if the marriage of la Peyrade to my ward takes place it is my intention to reward your services, and the sum of thirty thousand francs will be your perquisite.  Now, thirty thousand from one side and twenty-five thousand from the other makes precisely fifty-five thousand francs that the matrimonial vicissitudes of your friend la Peyrade will have put into your pocket.  But, as country people do at the shows of a fair, I shall not pay till I come out.  If you take that money out of your own hoard I shall feel no anxiety; you will know how to keep it from the clutches of your creditors.  If, on the contrary, my money is at stake, you will have neither the same eagerness nor the same intelligence in keeping it out of danger.  Therefore arrange your affairs so that you can pay down your own thirty-three thousand; in case of success, that sum will bring you in pretty nearly a hundred per cent.  That’s my last word, and I shall not listen to any objections.”

Cerizet had no time to make any, for at that moment the door of du Portail’s study opened abruptly, and a fair, slender woman, whose face expressed angelic sweetness, entered the room eagerly.  On her arm, wrapped in handsome long clothes, lay what seemed to be the form of an infant.

“There!” she said, “that naughty Katte insisted that the doctor was not here.  I knew perfectly well that I had seen him enter.  Well, doctor,” she continued, addressing Cerizet, “I am not satisfied with the condition of my little one, not satisfied at all; she is very pallid, and has grown so thin.  I think she must be teething.”

Du Portail made Cerizet a sign to accept the role so abruptly thrust upon him.

“Yes, evidently,” he said, “it is the teeth; children always turn pale at that crisis; but there’s nothing in that, my dear lady, that need make you anxious.”

“Do you really think so, doctor,” said the poor crazed girl, whom our readers have recognized as du Portail’s ward, Lydie de la Peyrade; “but see her dear little arms, how thin they are getting.”

Then taking out the pins that fastened the swathings, she exhibited to Cerizet a bundle of linen which to her poor distracted mind represented a baby.

“Why, no, no,” said Cerizet, “she is a trifle thin, it is true, but the flesh is firm and her color excellent.”