"Which is four days too many; but it is your affair. At the first outbreak, my niece leaves your house."
"Be assured, sir—"
"It is all for your own interest,—and look to it, for I am not a man of many words," said M. Badinot, with a patronising air, and he went out.
Need we say that this female and her young daughter, who lived so lonely, were the two victims of the notary's cupidity? We will now conduct the reader to the miserable retreat in which they lived.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE VICTIMS OF MISPLACED CONFIDENCE.[6]
Let the reader picture to himself a small chamber on the fourth floor of the wretched house in the Passage de la Brasserie. Scarcely could the faint glimmers of early morn force their pale rays through the narrow casements forming the only window to this small apartment; the three panes of glass that apology for a window contained were cracked and almost the colour of horn, a dingy and torn yellow paper adhered in some places to the walls, while from each corner of the cracked ceiling hung long and thick cobwebs; and to complete the appearance of wretchedness so evident in this forlorn spot, the flooring was broken away, and, in many places, displayed the beams which supported it, as well as the lath and plaster forming the ceiling of the room beneath. A deal table, a chair, an old trunk, without hinges or lock, a truckle-bed, with a wooden headboard, covered by a thin mattress, coarse sheets of unbleached cloth, and an old rug,—such was the entire furniture of this wretched chamber.
[6] "The average punishment awarded to such as are convicted of breach of trust is two months' imprisonment and a fine of twenty-five francs."—Art. 406 and 408 of the "Code Penal."