It was a matter of ten days later, towards the end of March, that the Roubauds at last triumphed over the Lebleus. The railway company had recognised their appeal, supported by M. Dabadie, as just; and the more easily did they arrive at this conclusion as the famous letter from the cashier, undertaking to give up the lodging if a new assistant station-master claimed it, had been found by Mademoiselle Guichon, while looking over some old accounts in the archives of the station. And Madame Lebleu, exasperated at her defeat, at once spoke of moving; as they wanted to kill her, she might just as well die now without waiting. For three days this memorable removal kept the corridor in a fever. Little Madame Moulin, herself usually so retiring, whom no one ever saw come in or go out, became implicated in the business by carrying a work-table from one lodging to the other. But it was particularly Philomène who breathed the breath of discord. She had arrived there, to assist, from the very commencement, doing up packages, jostling the furniture, invading the lodging on the front before the tenant had left; and it was she who pushed her out, amidst the going and coming of the two sets of household goods, which had got mixed together, in wild confusion, in the course of transport. When Philomène had carried off the last chair the doors banged; but perceiving a stool, which the wife of the cashier had forgotten, she opened again, and threw it across the corridor. That was the end. Philomène had reached the point of displaying such excessive zeal for Jacques and all he loved, that Pecqueux was astonished. Feeling suspicious, he asked her, in his nasty, sly manner, with his air of a vindictive drunkard, whether she was now smitten with his driver, warning her that he would settle the account of both of them if he ever caught them together. Her fancy for the young man had increased, and she acted as a sort of servant to him and his sweetheart, in the hope of gaining a little of his affection by placing herself between them. Life slowly resumed its monotonous course. While Madame Lebleu, at the back, riveted to her armchair by rheumatism, was dying of spleen, with great tears in her eyes because she could see nothing but the zinc roof of the marquee shutting out the sky, Séverine worked at her interminable bed-covering beside one of the windows on the front. Below, she had the lively activity of the courtyard, the constant stream of pedestrians and carriages. The forward spring was already turning the buds of the great trees that lined the pavements green, and beyond, the distant hills of Ingouville displayed their wooded slopes, studded with the white spots of country houses.