"Very well then, the remedy is as simple as can be. If you want to put an end to the thing, give him your 1,000 frcs."
By an extraordinary effort she rose to her feet; and, resuscitated, as it were, she violently answered:
"My 1,000 frcs.? Never! I would sooner burst. Ah! they are hidden, and well hidden, take my word! The house may be turned upside down, but I defy anyone to find them. And he has had a good try, the demon! I have heard him at night time, sounding all the walls. Search, search! The mere pleasure of watching his nose grow longer, would suffice to give me patience. We shall see who will give up first, him or me. I am on my guard, and swallow nothing that he touches. And if I kick the bucket, well, he will not even then get my 1,000 frcs. I prefer leaving them to the earth."
She sank back into the chair exhausted, shaking at another sound of the horn. It came from Misard, who, standing at the door of his box, this time signalled a train on its way to Havre. In spite of her obstinate determination to withhold the legacy, she had a secret and increasing fear of him, the same kind of fear as that of a giant, for the insect he feels devouring him.
The train signalled, the slow train which had left Paris at 12.45, was coming along in the distance with a dull rumble. It could be heard issuing from the tunnel and puffing louder in the open country. Then it passed amidst the thunder of its wheels, and its mass of carriages, with the invincible might of a hurricane.
Jacques, with his eyes raised towards the window, had watched the small squares of glass file past. Wishing to turn aside the gloomy ideas of Aunt Phasie, he resumed in a joking vein:
"Godmother, you complain that you never see a soul in this hole; but there are people for you!"
Failing, at first, to catch his meaning, she looked astounded, and inquired:
"Where are there any people?" Then, understanding, she added: "Ah! yes, those folk who go by. What good are they? One does not know them, one cannot chat with them."
He continued in a merry tone: