e Poirel's nomination.
She knew nothing, of course, of the fatal agreement made by the abbe
with Mademoiselle Gamard, for the excellent reason that he did not
know of it himself; and because it is in the nature of things that the
comical is often mingled with the pathetic, the singular replies of the
poor abbe made her smile.

"Chapeloud was right," he said; "he is a monster!"

"Who?" she asked.

"Chapeloud. He has taken all."

"You mean Poirel?"

"No, Troubert."

At last they reached the Alouette, where the priest's friends gave him
such tender care that towards evening he grew calmer and was able to
give them an account of what had 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 simplicit