_" (indicating the
collection), "I know very well what I should do."

"That is just what I want to know," La Cibot answered, with sufficient
simplicity.

"There is a fire in the grate----" he said. Then he rose to go.

"After all, no one will know about it, but you and me----" began La
Cibot.

"It can never be proved that a will existed," asserted the man of law.

"And you?"

"I?... If M. Pons dies intestate, you shall have a hundred thousand
francs."

"Oh yes, no doubt," returned she. "People promise you heaps of money,
and when they come by their own, and there is talk of paying they
swindle you like--" "Like Elie Magus," she was going to say, but she
stopped herself just in time.

"I am going," said Fraisier; "it is not to your interest that I should
be found here; but I shall see you again downstairs."

La Cibot shut the door and returned with the sealed packet in her hand.
She had quite made up her mind to burn it; but as she went towards
the bedroom fireplace, she felt the grasp of a hand on each arm, and
saw--Schmucke on one hand, and Pons himself on the other, leaning
against the partition wall on either side of the door.

La Cibot cried out, and fell face downwards in a fit; real or feigned,
no one ever knew the truth. This sight produced such an impression on
Pons that a deadly faintness came upon him, and Schmucke left the woman
on the floor to help Pons back to bed. The friends trembled in every
limb; they had set themselves a hard task, it was done, but it had been
too much for their strength. When Pons lay in bed again, and Schmucke
had regained strength to some extent, he heard a sound of sobbing. La
Cibot, on her knees, bursting into tears, held out supplicating hands to
them in very expressive pantomime.

"It was pure curiosity!" she sobbed, when she saw that Pons and Schmucke
were paying attention to her proceedings. "Pure curiosity; a woman's
fault, you know. But I did not know how else to get a sight of your
will, and I brought it back again--"

"Go!" said Schmucke, standing erect, his tall figure gaining in height
by the full height of his indignation. "You are a monster! You dried to
kill mein goot Bons! He is right. You are worse than a monster, you are
a lost soul!"

La Cibot saw the look of abhorrence in the frank German's face; she
rose, proud as Tartuffe, gave Schmucke a glance which made him quake,
and went out, carrying off under her dress an exquisite little picture
of Met