“Well, why not?  It might be possible to have just this.  Let’s ask the Widow.”

So, when they were sitting over their cigarettes, and the old woman was clearing the table, the Doctor looked her over, and considered the road of approach.

She was a rugged old woman, well on toward eighty, with a bronzed, weather-worn face, abundant coarse gray hair, a heavy shapeless figure, but a firm bearing, in spite of her rounded back.  As far as they could see, they were alone on the place with her.  The Doctor decided to jump right into the subject.

“Mother,” he said, “I suppose you don’t want to sell this place?”

The old woman eyed him a moment with her sharp dark eyes.

“But, yes, Monsieur,” she replied.  “I should like it very well, only it is not possible.  No one would be willing to pay my price.  Oh, no, no one.  No, indeed.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “how do you know that?  What is the price?—­Is it permitted to ask?”

The old woman hesitated,—­started to speak—­changed her mind, and turned away, muttering.  “Oh, no, Monsieur,—­it is not worth the trouble—­no one will ever pay my price.”

The Doctor jumped up, laughing, ran after her, took her by the arm, and led her back to the table.

“Now, come, come, Mother,” he remarked, “let us hear the price at any rate.  I am so curious.”

“Well,” said the Widow, “it is like this.  I would like to get for it what my brother paid for it, when he bought it at the death of my father—­it was to settle with the rest of the heirs—­we were eight then.  They are all dead but me.  But no, no one will ever pay that price, so I may as well let it go to my niece.  She is the last.  She doesn’t need it.  She has land enough.  The cultivator has a hard time these days.  It is as much as I can do to make the old place feed me and pay the taxes, and I am getting old.  But no one will ever pay the price, and what will my brother think of me when the bon Dieu calls me, if I sell it for less than he paid?  As for that, I don’t know what he’ll say to me for selling it at all.  But I am getting old to live here alone—­all alone.  But no one will ever pay the price.  So I may as well die here, and then my brother can’t blame me.  But it is lonely now, and I am growing too old.  Besides, I don’t suppose you want to buy it.  What would a gentleman do with this?”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “I don’t really know what a gentleman would do with it,” and he added, under his breath, in English, “but I know mighty well what this fellow could do with it, if he could get it,” and he lighted a fresh cigarette.

The keen old eyes had watched his face.

“I don’t suppose you want to buy it?” she persisted.

“Well,” responded the Doctor, “how can a poor man like me say, if you don’t care to name your price, and unless that price is within reason?”