happened during the morning.

The phlegmatic old fox asked to see the deed which, on thinking the
matter over, seemed to him to contain the solution of the enigma.
Birotteau drew the fatal stamped paper from his pocket and gave it to
Monsieur de Bourbonne, who read it rapidly and soon came upon the
following clause:--

"Whereas a difference exists of eight hundred francs yearly between
the price of board paid by the late Abbe Chapeloud and that at which
the said Sophie Gamard agrees to take into her house, on the
above-named stipulated condition, the said Francois Birotteau; and
whereas it is understood that the undersigned Francois Birotteau is
not able for some years to pay the full price charged to the other
boarders of Mademoiselle Gamard, more especially the Abbe Troubert;
the said Birotteau does hereby engage, in consideration of certain
sums of money advanced by the undersigned Sophie Gamard, to leave her,
as indemnity, all the household property of which he may die possessed,
or to transfer the same to her should he, for any reason whatever or
at any time, voluntarily give up the apartment now leased to him, and
thus derive no further profit from the above-named engagements made by
Mademoiselle Gamard for his benefit--"

"Confound her! what an agreement!" cried the old gentleman. "The said
Sophie Gamard is armed with claws."

Poor Birotteau never imagined in his childish brain that anything
could ever separate him from that house where he expected to live and
die with Mademoiselle Gamard. He had no remembrance whatever of that
clause, the terms of which he had not discussed, for they had seemed
quite just to him at a time when, in his great anxiety to enter the
old maid's house, he would readily have signed any and all legal
documents she had offered him. His simplicity was so guileless and
Mademoiselle Gamard's conduct so atrocious, the fate of the poor old
man seemed so deplorable, and his natural helplessness made him so
touching, that in the first glow of her indignation Madame de
Listomere exclaimed: "I made you put your signature to that document
which has ruined you; I am bound to give you back the happiness of
which I have deprived you."

"But," remarked Monsieur de Bourbonne, "that deed constitutes a fraud;
there may be ground for a lawsuit."

"Then Birotteau shall go to the law. If he loses at Tours he may win
at Orleans; if he loses at Orleans, he'll win in Paris," cried the
Baron de Listomere