ter
quietly?"

"Ah! I don't know," she said, with a smile. "There will perhaps be a
shot or two fired."

He looked at her fixedly.

"Well, but I say, little woman," he resumed in a hoarse voice, "you
don't intend, do you, to have a bullet lodged in my head?"

Felicite blushed. She was, in fact, just thinking that they would be
rendered a great service, if, during the attack on the town-hall, a
bullet should rid them of Antoine. It would be a gain of a thousand
francs, besides all the rest. So she muttered with irritation: "What an
idea! Really, it's abominable to think such things!"

Then, suddenly calming down, she added:

"Do you accept? You understand now, don't you?"

Macquart had understood perfectly. It was an ambush that they were
proposing to him. He did not perceive the reasons or the consequences
of it, and this was what induced him to haggle. After speaking of the
Republic as though it were a mistress whom, to his great grief, he could
no longer love, he recapitulated the risks which he would have to run,
and finished by asking for two thousand francs. But Felicite abided
by her original offer. They debated the matter until she promised to
procure him, on his return to France, some post in which he would
have nothing to do, and which would pay him well. The bargain was then
concluded. She made him don the uniform she had brought with her. He
was to betake himself quietly to aunt Dide's, and afterwards, towards
midnight, assemble all the Republicans he could in the neighbourhood of
the town-hall, telling them that the municipal offices were unguarded,
and that they had only to push open the door to take possession of them.
Antoine then asked for earnest money, and received two hundred francs.
Felicite undertook to pay the remaining eight hundred on the following
day. The Rougons were risking the last sum they had at their disposal.

When Felicite had gone downstairs, she remained on the square for a
moment to watch Macquart go out. He passed the guard-house, quietly
blowing his nose. He had previously broken the skylight in the
dressing-room, to make it appear that he had escaped that way.

"It's all arranged," Felicite said to her husband, when she returned
home. "It will be at midnight. It doesn't matter to me at all now. I
should like to see them all shot. How they slandered us yesterday in the
street!"

"It was rather silly of you to hesitate," replied Pierre, who was
shaving. "Every one would