In the month of August Meilhan was met coming out of Mme Lacoste's by the Mayor. Jingling money in his pocket, the schoolmaster told the Mayor he had just drawn the first payment of his annuity. Later Meilhan bragged to the cure of Basais that he was made for life. He took a handful of louis from his pocket, and told the priest that this was his daily allowance. "Whence," demanded the acte d'accusation, "came all those riches, if they were not the price of his share in the crime?" But the good offices of Mme Lacoste towards Meilhan did not end with the giving of money. In the month of August Meilhan was chased from his lodgings by his landlord, Lescure, on suspicion of having had intimate relations with the landlord's wife. The intervention of the Mayor was ineffective in bringing about a reconciliation between Meilhan and Lescure. Meilhan begged Mme Lacoste to intercede, and where the Mayor had failed she succeeded. While Mme Lacoste was thus smothering Meilhan with kindnesses she was longing herself to make the most of the fortune which had come to her. From the first days of her widowhood she was constantly writing letters which Mme Lescure carried for her. Euphemie had already begun to talk of remarriage. Her choice was already made. "If I marry again," she said, a few days after the death of Lacoste, "I won't take anybody but M. Henri Berens, of Tarbes. He was my first love." The accusation told of Euphemie's departure for Tarbes, where almost her first caller was this M. Henri Berens. The next day she gave up the lodgings rented by her late husband, to establish herself in rich apartments owned by one Fourcade, which she furnished sumptuously. The accusation dwelt on her purchase of horses and a carriage and on her luxurious way of living. It also brought forward some small incidents illustrative of her distaste for the memory of her late husband. It dealt with information supplied by her landlord which indicated that her conscience was troubled. Twice M. Fourcade found her trembling, as with fear. On his asking her what was the matter she replied, "I was thinking of my husband--if he saw me in a place furnished like this!" (It need hardly be pointed out, considering the sour and avaricious ways of her late husband, that Euphemie need not have been conscience-stricken with his murder to have trembled over her lavish expenditure of his fortune. But the point is typical of the trivialities with which the acte d'accusation was padded out.) The accusation claimed that a young man had several times been seen leaving Euphemie's apartments at midnight, and spoke of protests made by Mme Fourcade. Euphemie declared herself indifferent to public opinion.