The room was lighted by a single lamp, which stood on a corner of the writing-table. As Rougon entered, a slight noise, a gentle rustling of paper, had come from behind a high-backed arm-chair which stood in front of the mantelpiece, but then such perfect silence had fallen that the previous sound might have been thought the mere cracking of some half-extinguished piece of firewood. Gilquin declined to take a seat; so he and Rougon remained standing near the door, in a patch of shadow cast by a bookcase. 'Well?' Rougon asked again; and then he mentioned that he had called in the Rue Guisarde during the afternoon. At this Gilquin began to speak of his doorkeeper, an excellent woman, who was, unfortunately, dying of consumption, which she had contracted owing to the dampness of the ground floor of the house. 'But this important piece of business of yours? What is it?' asked the great man impatiently. 'Oh, wait a moment,' rejoined the other, 'I have come about that. I'll tell you about it directly. But did you go upstairs, and did you hear my cat? It's a cat that came in by way of the roof. One night, when my window was open, I found her lying by my side. She was licking my beard. It seemed very droll, and so I kept her.' Then, at last, he made up his mind to speak of the particular business which had brought him there. It was a long story.[12] He commenced by relating his amours with an ironing-girl, with whom he had fallen in love one evening, as he was coming out of the Ambigu Theatre. Poor Eulalie, he said, had been distrained upon by her landlord, when only five instalments of her rent were due. For the last ten days, therefore, she had been staying at a lodging-house in the Rue Montmartre, near her work, and it was there that he himself had been sleeping all the week, the room being on the second floor, a dark little place at the far end of a passage, which overlooked a yard. All this did not interest Rougon, still he listened with patient resignation. 'Well, three days ago,' continued Gilquin, 'I brought a cake and a bottle of wine with me in the evening. We ate the cake and drank the wine in bed. A little before midnight, Eulalie got up to shake out the crumbs; and then she went soundly to sleep. She sleeps like a log. I, myself, was lying awake. I had blown out the candle, and was staring up into the darkness, when I heard a dispute in the next room. I ought to tell you that between the two rooms there's a door which has been fastened up. After a time the voices quieted down and peace seemed to have been made; but I still heard such singular sounds that at last I got out of bed and fixed my eye to a crack in the door. Well, you'll never guess what I saw then!' He stopped for a moment, and gazed at Rougon, revelling in the effect which he thought he was producing.