liments; but to tell the truth all this trouble was
superfluous; he was beloved, and with one fond look he might have won
pardon for far greater neglect.

An hour before the treasurer's arrival there had been a knock at the door
of the old house, and Maitre Quennebert, curled, pomaded, and prepared
for conquest, had presented himself at the widow's. She received him
with a more languishing air than usual, and shot such arrows at him froth
her eyes that to escape a fatal wound he pretended to give way by degrees
to deep sadness. The widow, becoming alarmed, asked with tenderness--

"What ails you this evening?"

He rose, feeling he had nothing to fear from his rival, and, being master
of the field, might henceforth advance or recede as seemed best for his
interests.

"What ails me?" he repeated, with a deep sigh. "I might deceive you,
might give you a misleading answer, but to you I cannot lie. I am in
great trouble, and how to get out of it I don't know."

"But tell me what it is," said the widow, standing up in her turn.

Maitre Quennebert took three long strides, which brought him to the far
end of the room, and asked--

"Why do you want to know? You can't help me. My trouble is of a kind a
man does not generally confide to women."

"What is it? An affair of honour?

"Yes."

"Good God! You are going to fight!" she exclaimed, trying to seize him
by the arm. "You are going to fight!"

"Ah! if it were nothing worse than that!" said Quennebert, pacing up and
down the room: "but you need not be alarmed; it is only a money trouble.
I lent a large sum, a few months ago, to a friend, but the knave has run
away and left me in the lurch. It was trust money, and must be replaced
within three days. But where am I to get two thousand francs?"

"Yes, that is a large sum, and not easy to raise at such short notice."

"I shall be obliged to have recourse to some Jew, who will drain me dry.
But I must save my good name at all costs."

Madame Rapally gazed at him in consternation. Maitre Quennebert,
divining her thought, hastened to add--

"I have just one-third of what is needed."

"Only one-third?"

"With great care, and by scraping together all I possess, I can make up
eight hundred livres. But may I be damned in the next world, or punished
as a swindler in this, and one's as bad as the other to me, if I can
raise one farthing more."

"But suppose someone should lend you the twelve hundred francs,