"I do not want it! How are you going to do it? How?"
"In a way which he knows about and approves."
Attalie hid her shapely forehead again on the dead hand. "I cannot leave him. Do what you please, only let me stay here. Oh! let me stay here."
"I see," said Camille, with cold severity, "like all women, you count the foolish sentiments of the living of more value than the reasonable wish of the dead." He waited a moment for these words to take effect upon her motionless form, and then, seeing that—again like a woman—she was waiting and wishing for compulsion, he lifted her by one arm. "Come. Go. And make haste to get back again; we are losing priceless time."
She went. But just outside the door she seemed to halt. Camille put out his freckled face and turtle neck. "Well?"
"O Michié Ducour!" the trembling woman whispered, "those three witnesses will never do. I am in debt to every one of them!"
"Madame Brouillard, the one you owe the most to will be the best witness. Well? What next?"
"O my dear friend! what is this going to cost?—in money, I mean. I am so afraid of lawyers' accounts! I have nothing, and if it turns out that he has very, very little—It is true that I sent for you, but—I did not think you—what must you charge?"
"Nothing!" whispered Camille. "Madame Brouillard, whether he leaves you little or much, this must be for me a labor of love to him who was secretly my friend, or I will not touch it. He certainly had something, however, or he would not have tried to write a will. But, my dear madame, if you do not right here, now, stop looking scared, as if you were about to steal something instead of saving something from being stolen, it will cost us a great deal. Go. Make haste! That's right!—Ts-s-st! Hold on! Which is your own bedroom, upstairs?—Never mind why I ask; tell me. Yes; all right I Now, go!—Ts-s-st! Bring my hat up as you return."
She went downstairs. Camille tiptoed quickly back into the death chamber, whipped off his shoes, ran to a small writing-table, then to the bureau, then to the armoire, trying their drawers. They were locked, every one. He ran to the bed and searched swiftly under pillows and mattresses—no keys. Never mind. He wrapped a single sheet about the dead man's form, stepped lightly to the door, looked out, listened, heard nothing, and tripped back again.