ince he heard of Monsieur Malin's arrival he has been gloomy,"
replied the old woman. "But it is getting damp here, let us go in."

After the two women had settled themselves in the chimney corner they
heard Couraut's bark.

"There's my husband returning!" cried Marthe.

Michu passed up the stairs; his wife, uneasy, followed him to their
bedroom.

"See if any one is about," he said to her, in a voice of some emotion.

"No one," she replied. "Marianne is in the field with the cow, and
Gaucher--"

"Where is Gaucher?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"I distrust that little scamp. Go up in the garret, look in the
hay-loft, look everywhere for him."

Marthe left the room to obey the order. When she returned she found
Michu on his knees, praying.

"What is the matter?" she said, frightened.

The bailiff took his wife round the waist and drew her to him, saying in
a voice of deep feeling: "If we never see each other again remember, my
poor wife, that I loved you well. Follow minutely the instructions which
you will find in a letter buried at the foot of the larch in that copse.
It is enclosed in a tin tube. Do not touch it until after my death.
And remember, Marthe, whatever happens to me, that in spite of man's
injustice, my arm has been the instrument of the justice of God."

Marthe, who turned pale by degrees, became white as her own linen; she
looked at her husband with fixed eyes widened by fear; she tried to
speak, but her throat was dry. Michu disappeared like a shadow, having
tied Couraut to the foot of his bed where the dog, after the manner of
all dogs, howled in despair.

Michu's anger against Monsieur Marion had serious grounds, but it was
now concentrated on another man, far more criminal in his eyes,--on
Malin, whose secrets were known to the bailiff, he being in a better
position than others to understand the conduct of the State Councillor.
Michu's father-in-law had had, politically speaking, the confidence of
the former representative to the Convention, through Grevin.

Perhaps it would be well here to relate the circumstances which
brought the Simeuse and the Cinq-Cygne families into connection with
Malin,--circumstances which weighed heavily on the fate of Mademoiselle
de Cinq-Cygne's twin cousins, but still more heavily on that of Marthe
and Michu.

The Cinq-Cygne mansion at Troyes stands opposite to that of Simeuse.
When the populace, incited by minds that were as shrewd as they were
cautio