“Well done, bourgeois!” cried the inn-keeper.

“Don’t you think that’s good play?” said Leger.

“Besides,” said the inn-keeper, “the farm is really worth that to him.”

“Yes; Les Moulineaux brings in to-day six thousand francs in rental.  I’ll take another lease of it at seven thousand five hundred for eighteen years.  Therefore it is really an investment at more than two and a half per cent.  The count can’t complain of that.  In order not to involve Moreau, he is himself to propose me as tenant and farmer; it gives him a look of acting for his master’s interests by finding him nearly three per cent for his money, and a tenant who will pay well.”

“How much will Moreau make, in all?”

“Well, if the count gives him ten thousand francs for the transaction the matter will bring him fifty thousand,—­and well-earned, too.”

“After all, the count, so they tell me, doesn’t like Presles.  And then he is so rich, what does it matter what it costs him?” said the inn-keeper.  “I have never seen him, myself.”

“Nor I,” said Pere Leger.  “But he must be intending to live there, or why should he spend two hundred thousand francs in restoring the chateau?  It is as fine now as the King’s own palace.”

“Well, well,” said the inn-keeper, “it was high time for Moreau to feather his nest.”

“Yes, for if the masters come there,” replied Leger, “they won’t keep their eyes in their pockets.”

The count lost not a word of this conversation, which was held in a low voice, but not in a whisper.

“Here I have actually found the proofs I was going down there to seek,” he thought, looking at the fat farmer as he entered the kitchen.  “But perhaps,” he added, “it is only a scheme; Moreau may not have listened to it.”

So unwilling was he to believe that his steward could lend himself to such a conspiracy.

Pierrotin here came out to water his horses.  The count, thinking that the driver would probably breakfast with the farmer and the inn-keeper, feared some thoughtless indiscretion.

“All these people combine against us,” he thought; “it is allowable to baffle them—­ Pierrotin,” he said in a low voice as the man passed him, “I promised you ten louis to keep my secret; but if you continue to conceal my name (and remember, I shall know if you pronounce it, or make the slightest sign that reveals it to any one, no matter who, here or at Isle-Adam, before to-night), I will give you to-morrow morning, on your return trip, the thousand francs you need to pay for your new coach.  Therefore, by way of precaution,” added the count, striking Pierrotin, who was pale with happiness, on the shoulder, “don’t go in there to breakfast; stay with your horses.”

“Monsieur le comte, I understand you; don’t be afraid! it relates to Pere Leger, of course.”

“It relates to every one,” replied the count.

“Make yourself easy.—­Come, hurry,” said Pierrotin, a few moments later, putting his head into the kitchen.  “We are late.  Pere Leger, you know there’s a hill to climb; I’m not hungry, and I’ll drive on slowly; you can soon overtake me,—­it will do you good to walk a bit.”