r regret. They
learned quite by accident that you are ill, and they would like to nurse
you themselves. They want you to go to Marville and get well there. Mme.
la Vicomtesse Popinot, the little Cecile that you love so much, will be
your nurse. She took your part with her mother. She convinced Mme. de
Marville that she had made a mistake."

"So my next-of-kin have sent you to me, have they?" Pons exclaimed
indignantly, "and sent the best judge and expert in all Paris with you
to show you the way? Oh! a nice commission!" he cried, bursting into
wild laughter. "You have come to value my pictures and curiosities, my
snuff-boxes and miniatures!... Make your valuation. You have a man there
who understands everything, and more--he can buy everything, for he is
a millionaire ten times over.... My dear relatives will not have long
to wait," he added, with bitter irony, "they have choked the last breath
out of me.... Ah! Mme. Cibot, you said you were a mother to me, and you
bring dealers into the house, and my competitor and the Camusots, while
I am asleep!... Get out, all of you!--"

The unhappy man was beside himself with anger and fear; he rose from the
bed and stood upright, a gaunt, wasted figure.

"Take my arm, sir," said La Cibot, rushing to the rescue, lest Pons
should fall. "Pray calm yourself, the gentlemen are gone."

"I want to see the salon...." said the death-stricken man. La Cibot made
a sign to the three ravens to take flight. Then she caught up Pons as if
he had been a feather, and put him in bed again, in spite of his cries.
When she saw that he was quite helpless and exhausted, she went to shut
the door on the staircase. The three who had done Pons to death were
still on the landing; La Cibot told them to wait. She heard Fraisier say
to Magus:

"Let me have it in writing, and sign it, both of you. Undertake to pay
nine hundred thousand francs in cash for M. Pons' collection, and we
will see about putting you in the way of making a handsome profit."

With that he said something to La Cibot in a voice so low that the
others could not catch it, and went down after the two dealers to the
porter's room.

"Have they gone, Mme. Cibot?" asked the unhappy Pons, when she came back
again.

"Gone?... who?" asked she.

"Those men."

"What men? There, now, you have seen men," said she. "You have just
had a raving fit; if it hadn't been for me you would have gone out the
window, and now you are still talking of