Popinot looked at Madame Cesar without concealing his astonishment; he thought he was dreaming.  While du Tillet was writing his cheque at a high desk, Madame Cesar disappeared and went upstairs.  The druggist and the banker exchanged papers.  Du Tillet bowed coldly to Popinot, and went away.

“At last, in a few months,” thought Popinot, as he watched du Tillet going towards the Rue des Lombards, where his cabriolet was waiting, “thanks to this extraordinary affair, I shall have my Cesarine.  My poor little wife shall not wear herself out any longer.  A look from Madame Cesar was enough!  What secret is there between her and that brigand?  The whole thing is extraordinary.”

Popinot sent the cheque at once to the Bank, and went up to speak to Madame Birotteau; she was not in the counting-room, and had doubtless gone to her chamber.  Anselme and Constance lived like mother-in-law and son-in-law when people in that relation suit each other; he therefore rushed up to Madame Cesar’s appartement with the natural eagerness of a lover on the threshold of his happiness.  The young man was prodigiously surprised to find her, as he sprang like a cat into the room, reading a letter from du Tillet, whose handwriting he recognized at a glance.  A lighted candle, and the black and quivering phantoms of burned letters lying on the floor made him shudder, for his quick eyes caught the following words in the letter which Constance held in her hand:—­

  “I adore you!  You know it well, angel of my life, and—­”

“What power have you over du Tillet that could force him to agree to such terms?” he said with a convulsive laugh that came from repressed suspicion.

“Do not let us speak of that,” she said, showing great distress.

“No,” said Popinot, bewildered; “let us rather talk of the end of all your troubles.”  Anselme turned on his heel towards the window, and drummed with his fingers on the panes as he gazed into the court.  “Well,” he said to himself, “even if she did love du Tillet, is that any reason why I should not behave like an honorable man?”

“What is the matter, my child?” said the poor woman.

“The total of the net profits of Cephalic Oil mount up to two hundred and forty-two thousand francs; half of that is one hundred and twenty-one thousand,” said Popinot, brusquely.  “If I withdraw from that amount the forty-eight thousand francs which I paid to Monsieur Birotteau, there remains seventy-three thousand, which, joined to these sixty thousand paid for the relinquishment of the lease, gives you one hundred and thirty-three thousand francs.”

Madame Cesar listened with fluctuations of joy which made her tremble so violently that Popinot could hear the beating of her heart.

“Well, I have always considered Monsieur Birotteau as my partner,” he went on; “we can use this sum to pay his creditors in full.  Add the twenty-eight thousand you have saved and placed in our uncle Pillerault’s hands, and we have one hundred and sixty-one thousand francs.  Our uncle will not refuse his receipt for his own claim of twenty-five thousand.  No human power can deprive me of the right of lending to my father-in-law, by anticipating our profits of next year, the necessary sum to make up the total amount due to his creditor, and —­he—­will—­be—­reinstated—­restored—­”