She had entertained hopes that Fraisier himself would have
burned the unlucky document while she was out of the room.
"Well, my dear M. Fraisier, what is to be done?"
"Oh! that is your affair! I am not one of the next-of-kin, myself; but
if I had the slightest claim to any of _that_" (indicating the
collection), "I know very well what I should do."
"That is just what I want to know," La Cibot answered, with sufficient
simplicity.
"There is a fire in the grate----" he said. Then he rose to go.
"After all, no one will know about it, but you and me----" began La
Cibot.
"It can never be proved that a will existed," asserted the man of law.
"And you?"
"I? . . . If M. Pons dies intestate, you shall have a hundred thousand
francs."
"Oh yes, no doubt," returned she. "People promise you heaps of money,
and when they come by their own, and there is talk of paying they
swindle you like--" "Like Elie Magus," she was going to say, but she
stopped herself just in time.
"I am going," said Fraisier; "it is not to your interest that I should
be found here; but I shall see you again downstairs."
La Cibot shut the door and returned with the sealed packet in her
hand. She had quite made up her mind to burn it; but as she went
towards the bedroom fireplace, she felt the grasp of a hand on each
arm, and saw--Schmucke on one hand, and Pons himself on the other,
leaning against the partition wall on either side of the door.
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