ed Bixiou.

"Lift him up," said the doctor, looking at him. "He is as ill as
Madame Descoings; undress him and put him to bed; get off his boots."

"That's easy to say," cried Bixiou, "but they must be cut off; his
legs are swollen."

Agathe took a pair of scissors. When she had cut down the boots, which
in those days were worn outside the clinging trousers, ten pieces of
gold rolled on the floor.

"There it is,--her money," murmured Philippe. "Cursed fool that I was,
I forgot it. I too have missed a fortune."

He was seized with a horrible delirium of fever, and began to rave.
Joseph, assisted by old Desroches, who had come back, and by Bixiou,
carried him to his room. Doctor Haudry was obliged to write a line to
the Hopital de la Charite and borrow a strait-waistcoat; for the
delirium ran so high as to make him fear that Philippe might kill
himself,--he was raving. At nine o'clock calm was restored. The Abbe
Loraux and Desroches endeavored to comfort Agathe, who never ceased to
weep at her aunt's bedside. She listened to them in silence, and
obstinately shook her head; Joseph and the Descoings alone knew the
extent and depth of her inward wound.

"He will learn to do better, mother," said Joseph, when Desroches and
Bixiou had left.

"Oh!" cried the widow, "Philippe is right,--my father cursed me: I
have no right to-- Here, here is your money," she said to Madame
Descoings, adding Joseph's three hundred francs to the two hundred
found on Philippe. "Go and see if your brother does not need
something," she said to Joseph.

"Will you keep a promise made to a dying woman?" asked Madame
Descoings, who felt that her mind was failing her.

"Yes, aunt."

"Then swear to me to give your property to young Desroches for a life
annuity. My income ceases at my death; and from what you have just
said, I know you will let that wretch wring the last farthing out of
you."

"I swear it, aunt."

The old woman died on the 31st of December, five days after the
terrible blow which old Desroches had so innocently given her. The
five hundred francs--the only money in the household--were barely
enough to pay for her funeral. She left a small amount of silver and
some furniture, the value of which Madame Bixiou paid over to her
grandson Bixiou. Reduced to eight hundred francs' annuity paid to her
by young Desroches, who had bought a business without clients, and
himself took the capital of twelve thousand francs, Agathe gave up