"Yes, Captain," said the Doctor, breaking the pause, "we may look upon Poor Bouchereau as a dead man, even setting aside the risk he incurs from your good blade. Before twelve months are past, his wife may think about a second husband. She will be a charming little widow, and will not want for admirers." Pelletier cast a sidelong look at his companion, but the Doctor's air of perfect simplicity dispelled the suspicion his last words had awakened. "If Bouchereau died, his wife would be rich?" said the Captain, musingly, but in an interrogative tone. "_Peste!_" replied Magnian, "you may say that. Not one hundred thousand, but two hundred thousand crowns, at the very least." "You exaggerate!" cried the Captain, his eyes suddenly sparkling. "Easy to calculate," said Magnian confidently--"Madame Bouchereau inherited a hundred thousand francs from her father, she will have a hundred and fifty thousand from her mother, and her husband will leave her three hundred and fifty thousand more: add that up." "Her husband's fortune is secured to her, then, by marriage contract?" inquired Pelletier, who had listened with rapidly increasing interest to his companion's enumeration. "Every _sou_," replied the physician, solemnly. The two words were worth an hour's oration, and with a person whom he esteemed intelligent, M. Magnian would not have added another. But, remembering that the Captain, as he had said a few hours before, was more richly endowed with shoulders than with brains, he did not fear to weigh a little heavily upon an idea from which he expected a magical result. "For you," he jestingly resumed, "who have the bump of matrimony finely developed, here would be a capital match. Young, pretty, amiable, and a fortune of six hundred thousand francs. Though, to be sure, if you kill the husband, you can hardly expect to marry the widow." Pelletier forced a laugh, which ill agreed with the thoughtful expression his physiognomy had assumed; then he changed the conversation. Certain that he had attained his end, the Doctor pleaded a professional visit, and left the Captain upon the boulevard, struck to the very heart by the six hundred thousand francs of the future widow. Without halt or pause, and with the furious velocity of a wounded wild-boar, Pelletier went, without help of omnibus, from the Madeleine to the Bastille. When he reached the Porte St Martin, his determination was already taken.