s a gratuity or something paid to a person who has not
earned it.--TRANSLATOR.

When he presented himself next day at Madame Dambreuse's residence, he
was informed that she was busy below stairs in the room where M.
Dambreuse had kept his papers.

The cardboard receptacles and the different drawers had been opened
confusedly, and the account-books had been flung about right and left. A
roll of papers on which were endorsed the words "Repayment hopeless" lay
on the ground. He was near falling over it, and picked it up. Madame
Dambreuse had sunk back in the armchair, so that he did not see her.

"Well? where are you? What is the matter!"

She sprang to her feet with a bound.

"What is the matter? I am ruined, ruined! do you understand?"

M. Adolphe Langlois, the notary, had sent her a message to call at his
office, and had informed her about the contents of a will made by her
husband before their marriage. He had bequeathed everything to Cecile;
and the other will was lost. Frederick turned very pale. No doubt she
had not made sufficient search.

"Well, then, look yourself!" said Madame Dambreuse, pointing at the
objects contained in the room.

The two strong-boxes were gaping wide, having been broken open with
blows of a cleaver, and she had turned up the desk, rummaged in the
cupboards, and shaken the straw-mattings, when, all of a sudden,
uttering a piercing cry, she dashed into corner where she had just
noticed a little box with a brass lock. She opened it--nothing!

"Ah! the wretch! I, who took such devoted care of him!"

Then she burst into sobs.

"Perhaps it is somewhere else?" said Frederick.

"Oh! no! it was there! in that strong-box, I saw it there lately. 'Tis
burned! I'm certain of it!"

One day, in the early stage of his illness, M. Dambreuse had gone down
to this room to sign some documents.

"'Tis then he must have done the trick!"

And she fell back on a chair, crushed. A mother grieving beside an empty
cradle was not more woeful than Madame Dambreuse was at the sight of the
open strong-boxes. Indeed, her sorrow, in spite of the baseness of the
motive which inspired it, appeared so deep that he tried to console her
by reminding her that, after all, she was not reduced to sheer want.

"It is want, when I am not in a position to offer you a large fortune!"

She had not more than thirty thousand livres a year, without taking into
account the mansion, which was worth from eighteen to twen