When Saccard, after having fixed upon his plan, was seeking for the means for putting it into execution, he naturally bethought him of his sister. She shook her head, and with a sigh alluded to the three milliards. But the civil servant would not humour her whim, he pulled her up rather roughly each time she mentioned the debt connected with the Stuarts; such a chimera seemed to him to dishonour so practical an intelligence. Madame Sidonie, who quietly swallowed the most cutting irony without in any way allowing her convictions to be shaken, next explained to him in a very lucid manner that he would never raise a sou, having no security to offer. This conversation took place opposite the Bourse, where she no doubt dabbled with her savings. Towards three o'clock one was sure to find her leaning against the railing to the left, near the post-office; it was there that she gave audience to individuals as fishy and shadowy as herself. Her brother was on the point of leaving her, when she murmured regretfully: "Ah! if only you were not married!" This reticence, the full and exact sense of which he was unwilling to ask, made Saccard singularly thoughtful.
Months passed by, the Crimean war had just been declared. Paris, quite unaffected by a war so far away, was launching with more ardour than ever into speculation and women; whilst Saccard stood by gnawing his fists as he assisted at this ever increasing mania which he had long before foreseen. The hammers in the gigantic forge beating the gold upon the anvil made him quiver with rage and impatience. His intelligence and his will were worked up to such a pitch that he lived as in a dream, like a somnambulist walking along the edge of a roof a prey to some fixed idea. He was therefore surprised and annoyed one evening to find Angèle ill and in bed. His home-life, regulated like a clock, was getting out of order, and this exasperated him like some intentional spitefulness of destiny. Poor Angèle complained in a gentle voice; she had taken a severe chill. When the doctor arrived, he appeared very anxious; he told the husband, outside on the landing, that his wife was suffering from inflammation of the lungs and that he could not answer for her life. From that moment the civil servant tended the invalid without a vestige of anger; he no longer went to his office, he remained beside her, watching her with an indefinable expression as she lay sleeping, flushed and panting with fever.
Madame Sidonie, in spite of the overwhelming business which claimed her attention, found time to call each evening to make diet drinks which she pretended were sovereign remedies. To all her other trades she could add that of a sick-nurse by vocation, taking an interest in suffering, in medicaments, and in the heart-rending conversations which go on at the bedsides of those about to depart this life. Besides this, she seemed to be full of a tender friendship for Angèle; she loved women of amorous natures, showing her affection by a thousand little caressing ways, no doubt because of the pleasure they gave mankind; she treated them with the delicate attentions which dealers show towards the more precious of their wares, calling them "My beauty, my darling," cooing and almost swooning before them, like a lover in the presence of his mistress. Though Angèle was one of those from whom she expected nothing, she petted her up like the others, just by way of principle. When the young woman took to her bed, Madame Sidonie's effusions became quite pathetic, she filled the silent chamber with demonstrations of her devotion. Her brother watched her moving about, his teeth tightly set, and looking as though utterly wrapt up in a silent grief.
The disease took a turn for the worse. One evening the doctor informed them that the patient would not live through the night. Madame Sidonie had called early, with a preoccupied air, and she kept looking at Aristide and Angèle out of her watery eyes, lighted up every now and then by sudden flashes of fire. When the doctor had taken his departure, she turned down the lamp, and a great silence enveloped all. Death was slowly entering into this warm and dampish room, where the irregular breathing of the dying woman resembled the spasmodic ticking of a clock about to stop. Madame Sidonie had given up the diet drinks, and now allowed the disease to go its course. She had seated herself before the fire-place, at the side of her brother, who was stirring the coals with a feverish hand, and casting now and again an involuntary glance at the bed. Then, as though enervated by the close atmosphere, and by the sad spectacle, he withdrew into the adjoining room. Little Clotilde had been shut in there, and was playing very quietly with her doll on the edge of the rug. His daughter was smiling up at him when Madame Sidonie, creeping to where he stood, drew him into a corner, and commenced to speak in a hushed voice. The door had remained ajar. One could hear the faint rattle in Angèle's throat.
"Your poor wife," sobbed the business woman. "I fear the end is at hand. You heard what the doctor said?"
For all answer Saccard mournfully bowed his head.
"She was a good creature," continued the other, speaking as though Angèle were already dead and buried. "You may find many richer women, and ones more used to the world, but you will never meet with another heart like hers."
And as she stopped, and set to mopping her eyes, as though seeking a means of bringing the conversation to the subject she was driving at.
"You have something to tell me?" asked Saccard, without any beating about the bush.
"Yes, I have been busying myself about you, in reference to the matter you spoke of, and I think I have found something—but at such a moment—you see, my heart is bursting."