is gross reference to his
deformity.

"I am Seigneur of this Manor, and you have taken wages from me, and
eaten my bread, slept under my roof, and--"

"I've no more eaten your bread and slept under your roof than you have.
Pish! You were living then on another man's fortune, now you're living
on what your wife earns."

The Seigneur did not understand yet. But there was a strange light of
suspicion in his eyes, a nervous rage knotting his forehead.

"My land and my earnings are my own, and I have never lived on another
man's fortune. If you mean that the late Seigneur made a will--that
canard--"

"It was no canard." Tardif laughed hatefully. "There was a will right
enough."

"Where is it? I've heard that fool's gossip before."

"Where is it? Ask your wife; she knows. Ask your loving Tardif, he
knows."

"Where is the will, Tardif?" asked the Seigneur in a voice that, in his
own ears, seemed to come from an infinite distance; to Tardif's ears it
was merely tuneless and harsh.

"In M'sieu' Fournel's pocket, or Madame's. What's the difference? The
price is the same, and you keep your eyes shut and play the Seigneur,
and eat and drink what they give you just the same."

Now the Seigneur understood. His eyes went blind for a moment, and his
hands twitched convulsively on the embossed address he had been rolling
and unrolling. A terror, a shame, a dreadful cruelty entered into him,
but he was still and numb, and his tongue was thick. He spoke heavily.

"Tell me all," he said. "You shall be well paid."

"I don't want your money. I want to see you squirm. I want to see
her put where she deserves. Bah! Do you think Fournel forgave you for
putting his feet in his shoes, and for that case at law, for nothing?
Why should he? He hated you, and you hated him. His name's on that paper
in your hand among all the rest. Do you think he eats humble pie and
crawls to Madame and lets you stay here for nothing?"

The Seigneur was painfully quiet and intent, yet his brain was like some
great lens, refracting and magnifying things to monstrous proportions.

"A will was found?" he asked.

"By Madame in the library. She left it where she found it--behind the
picture over the Louis Seize table. The day you dismissed me, I saw
her at the cupboard. I found the will and started with it to M'sieu'
Fournel. She followed. You remember when she went--eh? On business--and
such business! she and Havel and the old slut Marie. You remember,