“When Madame Turgis arrives,” finished the old woman, with a snap, withdrawing the coin and hiding her hand under the bed-clothes. “So go now, like a good girl, or find some messenger to go for you. Tell Madame Turgis that the Comtesse de Béarn has need for her at once. Then the louis will be yours to do what you like with, eh? ’Tis not often a louis is earned so cheap. You’ll have a young man of your own, and nothing holds ’em like a bit of fine dress; and I’ll look among my things and see if I can’t find you a bit of lace, or a trinket to put on top of the louis. And—put your pretty ear down to me—_don’t let anyone know I’ve sent to Madame Turgis. It’s a secret between us about some property in the country._ You understand me?” Jehanneton, the maid, assented, and left the room, nodding her head, to acquaint immediately the powers below of this attempt at bribery and corruption. At five o’clock a new maid arrived with a tray containing soup and minced chicken. “What has become of Jehanneton?” asked the old woman. “Jehanneton went out, and has not yet come back,” replied the other. “I do not know where she has gone to. Does Madame feel better?” The invalid drank her soup and ate her chicken. She had been duped again, and she knew it. Her only consolation was the fact that she had not parted with the louis. At six she rang for a light. The maid who answered the summons not only brought a lamp, but put a lighted taper to all the candles about the dressing-table. “_Ma foi_!” cried the Comtesse. “I did not tell you to light those.” “It is by my mistress’s orders,” replied the maid, lighting, as she spoke, several more candles that stood on the bureau, till the room had almost the appearance of a _chapelle ardente_—an appearance that was helped out by the corpse-like figure on the bed. Then the maid went out. CHAPTER VII THE ARTIST Five minutes later a knock came to the door, and a man entered. It was Ferminard. He was carrying the stiff brocade dress of Madame de Béarn over his left arm. In his right hand he carried a wig-block, on which was a wig such as then was worn by the elderly women of the Court. The thing carried by Ferminard was less a wig than a structure of hair, a prefiguration of those towers and bastions with which the ladies of the sixteenth Louis’ reign adorned their heads. Hideous bastilles, which one would fancy did not require arming with guns to frighten Love from making any attack on the wearers. Under his right arm Ferminard also carried a rolled-up parcel. He made a bow to the occupant of the bed as he entered, and then advanced straight to the dressing-table, where he deposited the wig-block and the parcel, whilst the door closed, drawn to by someone in the corridor outside. “My hair! My dress! And, _mon Dieu_! A man in the room with me!” cried the Comtesse, seizing the bell on the table beside her and ringing it. “And the door shut! Monsieur, open that door, or I will cry for help.”