e lies."

She was silent for a moment, and then added that while some people
merely accused M. Grandguillot of having speculated on the Bourse, there
were others who accused him of still worse practises. And she burst into
fresh sobs.

"My God! My God! what is going to become of us? We are all going to die
of starvation!"

Shaken, then, moved by seeing Clotilde's eyes, too, filled with tears,
Pascal made an effort to remember, to see clearly into the past. Years
ago, when he had been practising in Plassans, he had deposited at
different times, with M. Grandguillot, the twenty thousand francs on the
interest of which he had lived comfortably for the past sixteen years,
and on each occasion the notary had given him a receipt for the sum
deposited. This would no doubt enable him to establish his position as
a personal creditor. Then a vague recollection awoke in his memory; he
remembered, without being able to fix the date, that at the request of
the notary, and in consequence of certain representations made by him,
which Pascal had forgotten, he had given the lawyer a power of attorney
for the purpose of investing the whole or a part of his money, in
mortgages, and he was even certain that in this power the name of the
attorney had been left in blank. But he was ignorant as to whether this
document had ever been used or not; he had never taken the trouble to
inquire how his money had been invested. A fresh pang of miserly anguish
made Martine cry out:

"Ah, monsieur, you are well punished for your sin. Was that a way to
abandon one's money? For my part, I know almost to a sou how my account
stands every quarter; I have every figure and every document at my
fingers' ends."

In the midst of her distress an unconscious smile broke over her face,
lighting it all up. Her long cherished passion had been gratified; her
four hundred francs wages, saved almost intact, put out at interest for
thirty years, at last amounted to the enormous sum of twenty thousand
francs. And this treasure was put away in a safe place which no one
knew. She beamed with delight at the recollection, and she said no more.

"But who says that our money is lost?" cried Pascal.

"M. Grandguillot had a private fortune; he has not taken away with him
his house and his lands, I suppose. They will look into the affair; they
will make an investigation. I cannot make up my mind to believe him a
common thief. The only trouble is the delay: a liquidation dr