"You've been robbed! That's false, I know. My house is respectable," said the fellow, in an insolent and brutal tone; "you only say that in order not to pay me my postage and commission."
"I tell you, sir, that this money was all I possessed in the world; it has been stolen from me, and I must have it found and restored, or I will lodge an information. Oh, I will conceal nothing—I will respect nothing—I tell you!"
"Very fine, indeed! You who have got no papers. Go and lay your information,—go at once. Why don't you? I defy you, I do!"
The wretched woman was thunderstruck. She could not go out and leave her daughter alone, confined to her bed as she was by the fright the Gros-Boiteux had occasioned her in the morning, and particularly after the threats with which the receiver of stolen goods had menaced her. He added:
"This is a fudge! You'd as much a bag of silver there as a bag of gold. Will you pay me for the letter,—will you or won't you? Well, it's just the same to me. When you go by my door, I'll snatch off your old black shawl from your shoulders. It's a precious shabby one; but I daresay I can make twenty sous out of it."
"Oh, sir," exclaimed Madame de Fermont, bursting into tears, "I beseech you have pity upon us! This small sum is all we possess, my daughter and I, and, that stolen, we have nothing left—nothing—I say nothing, but—to die of starvation!"
"What can I do? If it's true that you have been robbed, and of silver, too (which appears to me very unlikely), why, the silver has been melted long since, rely on it."
"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!"
"The chap who did the trick was not so soft, rely on it, as to mark the pieces, and keep 'em here, to lead to his own detection. Supposing it's any one in the house, which I don't believe (for, as I was a-saying this morning to the uncle of the lady on the first floor, this is really a village), if any one has robbed you, it is a pity. You may lay a hundred informations, but you won't recover a centime. You won't do any good by that, I tell you, and you may believe me. Well, but I say—" exclaimed the receiver, stopping short, and seeing Madame de Fermont stagger. "What's the matter? How pale you are! Mademoiselle, your mother's taken ill!" added Micou, just advancing in time to catch the unhappy mother, who, overcome by this last shock, felt her senses forsake her,—the forced energy which had supported her so long failed before this fresh blow.
"Mother, dear, oh, what ails you?" exclaimed Claire, still in her bed.