The
get-up was so perfect that the lawyer, though still on his guard, was
vexed with himself for having believed it to be one of Madame
Nourrisson's tricks.
"How much to you want of me?"
"Whatever you feel that you ought to give me."
Victorin took a five-franc piece from a little pile on his table, and
handed it to the stranger.
"That is not much on account of fifty thousand francs," said the
pilgrim of the desert.
This speech removed all Victorin's doubts.
"And has Heaven kept its word?" he said, with a frown.
"The question is an offence, my son," said the hermit. "If you do not
choose to pay till after the funeral, you are in your rights. I will
return in a week's time."
"The funeral!" cried the lawyer, starting up.
"The world moves on," said the old man, as he withdrew, "and the dead
move quickly in Paris!"
When Hulot, who stood looking down, was about to reply, the stalwart
old man had vanished.
"I don't understand one word of all this," said Victorin to himself.
"But at the end of the week I will ask him again about my father, if
we have not yet found him. Where does Madame Nourrisson--yes, that was
her name--pick up such actors?"
On the following day, Doctor Bianchon allowed the Baroness to go down
into the garden, after examining Lisbeth, who had been obliged to keep
to her room for a month by a slight bronchial attack.
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