the cafe de la
Rotonde, Joseph examined these tickets to see if, by chance, any of them
bore the Descoings's numbers. He found none, and returned home grieved
at having done his best in vain for the old woman, to whom he related
his ill-luck. Agathe and her aunt went together to the midnight mass at
Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Joseph went to bed. The collation did not take
place. Madame Descoings had lost her head; and in Agathe's heart was
eternal mourning.

The two rose late on Christmas morning. Ten o'clock had struck before
Madame Descoings began to bestir herself about the breakfast, which
was only ready at half-past eleven. At that hour, the oblong frames
containing the winning numbers are hung over the doors of the
lottery-offices. If Madame Descoings had paid her stake and held her
ticket, she would have gone by half-past nine o'clock to learn her
fate at a building close to the ministry of Finance, in the rue
Neuve-des-Petits Champs, a situation now occupied by the Theatre
Ventadour in the place of the same name. On the days when the drawings
took place, an observer might watch with curiosity the crowd of old
women, cooks, and old men assembled about the door of this building; a
sight as remarkable as the cue of people about the Treasury on the days
when the dividends are paid.

"Well, here you are, rolling in wealth!" said old Desroches, coming into
the room just as the Descoings was swallowing her last drop of coffee.

"What do you mean?" cried poor Agathe.

"Her trey has turned up," he said, producing the list of numbers written
on a bit of paper, such as the officials of the lottery put by hundreds
into little wooden bowls on their counters.

Joseph read the list. Agathe read the list. The Descoings read nothing;
she was struck down as by a thunderbolt. At the change in her face,
at the cry she gave, old Desroches and Joseph carried her to her bed.
Agathe went for a doctor. The poor woman was seized with apoplexy, and
she only recovered consciousness at four in the afternoon; old Haudry,
her doctor, then said that, in spite of this improvement, she ought to
settle her worldly affairs and think of her salvation. She herself only
uttered two words:--

"Three millions!"

Old Desroches, informed by Joseph, with due reservations, of the state
of things, related many instances where lottery-players had seen a
fortune escape them on the very day when, by some fatality, they had
forgotten to pay their stakes;