“I don’t put on gloves to tell him to get his affairs in order,” cried Mme. Cibot, “and he is none the worse for that.  He is used to it.  There is nothing to fear.”

“Not a word more about it, my dear Mme. Cibot!  These things are not within a doctor’s province; it is a notary’s business—­”

“But, my dear M. Poulain, suppose that M. Pons of his own accord should ask you how he is, and whether he had better make his arrangements; then, would you refuse to tell him that if you want to get better it is an excellent plan to set everything in order?  Then you might just slip in a little word for me—­”

“Oh, if he talks of making his will, I certainly shall not dissuade him,” said the doctor.

“Very well, that is settled.  I came to thank you for your care of me,” she added, as she slipped a folded paper containing three gold coins into the doctor’s hands.  “It is all I can do at the moment.  Ah! my dear M. Poulain, if I were rich, you should be rich, you that are the image of Providence on earth.—­Madame, you have an angel for a son.”

La Cibot rose to her feet, Mme. Poulain bowed amiably, and the doctor went to the door with the visitor.  Just then a sudden, lurid gleam of light flashed across the mind of this Lady Macbeth of the streets.  She saw clearly that the doctor was her accomplice—­he had taken the fee for the sham illness.

“M.  Poulain,” she began, “how can you refuse to say a word or two to save me from want, when you helped me in the affair of my accident?”

The doctor felt that the devil had him by the hair, as the saying is; he felt, too, that the hair was being twisted round the pitiless red claw.  Startled and afraid lest he should sell his honesty for such a trifle, he answered the diabolical suggestion by another no less diabolical.

“Listen, my dear Mme. Cibot,” he said, as he drew her into his consulting-room.  “I will now pay a debt of gratitude that I owe you for my appointment to the mairie—­”

“We go shares?” she asked briskly.

“In what?”

“In the legacy.”

“You do not know me,” said Dr. Poulain, drawing himself up like Valerius Publicola.  “Let us have no more of that.  I have a friend, an old schoolfellow of mine, a very intelligent young fellow; and we are so much the more intimate, because, our lives have fallen out very much in the same way.  He was studying law while I was a house-student, he was engrossing deeds in Maitre Couture’s office.  His father was a shoemaker, and mine was a breeches-maker; he has not found anyone to take much interest in his career, nor has he any capital; for, after all, capital is only to be had from sympathizers.  He could only afford to buy a provincial connection—­at Mantes—­and so little do provincials understand the Parisian intellect, that they set all sorts of intrigues on foot against him.”

“The wretches!” cried La Cibot.