between soul and body, striking
down to life's sources; and suddenly Pons regained for a few brief
moments the perfect calm that follows the struggle. He came to
himself, and with the serenity of death in his face he looked round
almost smilingly at them.

"Ah, doctor, I have had a hard time of it; but you were right, I am
doing better. Thank you, my good Abbe; I was wondering what had become
of Schmucke--"

"Schmucke has had nothing to eat since yesterday evening, and now it
is four o'clock! You have no one with you now and it would be wise to
send for Mme. Cibot."

"She is capable of anything!" said Pons, without attempting to conceal
all his abhorrence at the sound of her name. "It is true, Schmucke
ought to have some trustworthy person."

"M. Duplanty and I have been thinking about you both--"

"Ah! thank you, I had not thought of that."

"--And M. Duplanty suggests that you should have Mme. Cantinet--"

"Oh! Mme. Cantinet who lets the chairs!" exclaimed Pons. "Yes, she is
an excellent creature."

"She has no liking for Mme. Cibot," continued the doctor, "and she
would take good care of M. Schmucke--"

"Send her to me, M. Duplanty . . . send her and her husband too. I
shall be easy. Nothing will be stolen here."

Schmucke had taken Pons' hand again, and held it joyously in his own.
Pons was almost well again, he thought.

"Let us go, Monsieur l'Abbe," said the doctor. "I will send Mme.
Cantinet round at once. I see how it is. She perhaps may not find M.
Pons alive."

While the Abbe Duplanty was persuading Pons to engage Mme. Cantinet as
his nurse, Fraisier had sent for her. He had plied the beadle's wife
with sophistical reasoning and subtlety. It was difficult to resist
his corrupting influence. And as for Mme. Cantinet--a lean, sallow
woman, with large teeth and thin lips--her intelligence, as so often
happens with women of the people, had been blunted by a hard life,
till she had come to look upon the slenderest daily wage as
prosperity. She soon consented to take Mme. Sauvage with her as
general servant.

Mme. Sauvage had had her instructions already. She had undertaken to
weave a web of iron wire about the two musicians, and to watch them as
a spider watches a fly caught in the toils; and her reward was to be a
tobacconist's license. Fraisier had found a convenient opportunity of
getting rid of his so-called foster-mother, while he posted her as a
detective and policeman to supervise Mme.