“There are certain passions,” he interrupted, “which nothing betrays externally. Gambling is more terrible than fire. After a fire, some charred remnants are found. What is there left after a lost game? Fortunes may be thrown into the vortex of the bourse, without a trace of them being left.”
The unfortunate woman was not convinced.
“I could swear, sir,” she protested, “that I knew how my husband spent every hour of his life.”
“Do not swear, madame.”
“All our friends will tell you how parsimonious my husband was.”
“Here, madame, towards yourself and your children, I have no doubt; for seeing is believing: but elsewhere—”
He was interrupted by the arrival of the locksmith, who, in less than five minutes, had picked all the locks of the old desk.
But in vain did the commissary search all the drawers. He found only those useless papers which are made relics of by people who have made order their religious faith,—uninteresting letters, grocers’ and butchers’ bills running back twenty years.
“It is a waste of time to look for any thing here,” he growled.
And in fact he was about to give up his perquisitions, when a bundle thinner than the rest attracted his attention. He cut the thread that bound it; and almost at once: