Three weeks after the payment of the first debt, Roubaud owed nearly another 400 frcs. to M. Cauche. He explained that the legacy to his wife put them quite at their ease; but he added, with a laugh, that she kept the keys of the safe, which explained his delay in discharging his gambling liabilities. Then, one morning, when alone and tormented, he again raised the piece of parquetry, and took a 1000-franc-note from the hiding-place. He trembled in all his limbs. He had not experienced such emotion on the night he helped himself to the gold. Doubtless, in his mind, that was only odd change come across by chance, whereas the theft began with this note. It made his flesh creep when he thought of this sacred money, which he had vowed never to touch. Formerly he had sworn he would sooner die of hunger, and yet he touched it, and he could not explain how he had got rid of his scruples. Doubtless he had lost a portion of them day by day in the slow fermentation of the murder. At the bottom of the hole he fancied he felt something damp, something flabby and nauseous, which gave him horror. Quickly replacing the piece of parquetry, he once more swore that he would cut off his hand rather than remove it again. His wife had not seen him. He drew a breath of relief, and drank a large glass full of water to compose himself. Now his heart beat with delight at the idea of his debt being paid, and of all this sum he would be able to risk on the gambling-table. But when it became a question of changing the note, the vexations of Roubaud began again. Formerly he was brave, he would have given himself up had he not committed the folly of involving his wife in the business; while now the mere thought of the gendarmes made him shiver. It served him but little to know that the judicial authorities were not in possession of the numbers of the notes that had disappeared, and that the criminal proceedings were at rest, shelved for ever in the cardboard boxes; as soon as he formed the project of going somewhere to ask for change, he was seized with terror.