“You wish to know how you may come to the guillotine?”

La Cibot turned pale as death at the words; the words fell like a knife upon her neck.  She stared wildly at Fraisier.

“Listen to me, my dear child,” began Fraisier, suppressing his inward satisfaction at his client’s discomfiture.

“I would sooner leave things as they are—­” murmured La Cibot, and she rose to go.

“Stay,” Fraisier said imperiously.  “You ought to know the risks that you are running; I am bound to give you the benefit of my lights.—­You are dismissed by M. Pillerault, we will say; there is no doubt about that, is there?  You enter the service of these two gentlemen.  Very good!  That is a declaration of war against the Presidente.  You mean to do everything you can to gain possession of the property, and to get a slice of it at any rate—­

“Oh, I am not blaming you,” Fraisier continued, in answer to a gesture from his client.  “It is not my place to do so.  This is a battle, and you will be led on further than you think for.  One grows full of one’s ideas, one hits hard—­”

Another gesture of denial.  This time La Cibot tossed her head.

“There, there, old lady,” said Fraisier, with odious familiarity, “you will go a very long way!—­”

“You take me for a thief, I suppose?”

“Come, now, mamma, you hold a receipt in M. Schmucke’s hand which did not cost you much.—­Ah! you are in the confessional, my lady!  Don’t deceive your confessor, especially when the confessor has the power of reading your thoughts.”

La Cibot was dismayed by the man’s perspicacity; now she knew why he had listened to her so intently.

“Very good,” continued he, “you can admit at once that the Presidente will not allow you to pass her in the race for the property.—­You will be watched and spied upon.—­You get your name into M. Pons’ will; nothing could be better.  But some fine day the law steps in, arsenic is found in a glass, and you and your husband are arrested, tried, and condemned for attempting the life of the Sieur Pons, so as to come by your legacy.  I once defended a poor woman at Versailles; she was in reality as innocent as you would be in such a case.  Things were as I have told you, and all that I could do was to save her life.  The unhappy creature was sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude.  She is working out her time now at St. Lazare.”

Mme. Cibot’s terror grew to the highest pitch.  She grew paler and paler, staring at the little, thin man with the green eyes, as some wretched Moor, accused of adhering to her own religion, might gaze at the inquisitor who doomed her to the stake.

“Then, do you tell me, that if I leave you to act, and put my interests in your hands, I shall get something without fear?”

“I guarantee you thirty thousand francs,” said Fraisier, speaking like a man sure of the fact.

“After all, you know how fond I am of dear Dr. Poulain,” she began again in her most coaxing tones; “he told me to come to you, worthy man, and he did not send me here to be told that I shall be guillotined for poisoning some one.”