The woman seemed as if she had gone out of her senses, as she pushed us to the very feet of the corpse and snatched the covering from off its face. ‘Look at him,’ she said loudly, ‘and remember that he died from want! Sixty—a hundred francs would have saved him, mamselle; and he was owed five hundred and fifty, but couldn’t get it. Ah, Guillaume! husband of my youth! father of my children! thou art gone to the judgment-seat of God, to arrange a fearful reckoning for them that sent thee there so long before thy time.’ ‘Madame! madame!’ said Tessie, who unaccountably to me had begun to sob in unison with Mère Fromard. ‘Don’t speak like that—pray don’t! We have all felt for you so much, and papa sent you this in hopes it might be of use to poor Guillaume’ (putting something timidly into the woman’s hand); ‘and he would have done more if he could; you know he would, madame.’ Mère Fromard unclasped her hand and displayed a five-franc piece, then, with sudden energy, sent it spinning to the other end of the brick floor. ‘A five-franc piece!’ she cried scornfully; ‘a five-franc piece, when he owes him five hundred and fifty. Oh! it is no use to shake your head at me and cry, mamselle. The time is past for that! I have been very patient for a long, long time, but I didn’t think it would end like this. I thought my poor Guillaume would have got up again to see after that which was his—all his little savings—all the _dot_ I brought him at our marriage of two hundred francs—lent in an evil moment and never returned again—whilst he dies for want of proper warmth and nourishment.’ Madame Fromard had been running on in her usually (to me) incomprehensible dialect, but I gathered enough of her discourse to-day to be curious to learn more. ‘_Who_ has been so wicked as to defraud your family like this?’ I asked. ‘No! no! do not say it!’ cried Tessie, vehemently, as she seized Mère Fromard’s hand and kissed it. But the woman flung hers away. She seemed to have changed to-day from a patient sufferer into a demon. ‘I _will_ say it!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are his evil deeds always to be covered up with excuses and promises and fair words. It is the Curé Anglais, mamselle,’ she continued, turning to me. ‘It is Monsieur Lovett who borrowed my poor Guillaume’s savings, two, three, five years ago, and has been promising, promising, promising ever since to pay us back again, but never more than a few sous at a time. Who would have doubted him, mamselle, a man so good-intentioned, so benevolent, so charitable to the poor! We thought our money was safer than in a bank. We had lent it to the _Bon Dieu_ to accommodate His servant. It was bound to come back with blessings upon us, and it has come with _that_’, she said pathetically, pointing to her dead husband, ‘with a five-franc piece and a corpse! Bah! there can be no heaven, or such things would not be allowed.’