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Updated: May 4, 2025
The rain had ceased falling, but the wind blew with increased violence, twisting the branches off the trees, tearing slates from the roofs, and shaking the street-lamps so furiously as to extinguish the gas. They could not see a step before them; the mud was ankle-deep, and not a person, not a solitary soul was visible. "Are we almost there?" M. Fortunat asked every ten paces.
"She's almost blind now; but, in less than six months she will be able to stand at her window and see a pin in the middle of the street, so the physician who is treating her eyes promised me; then we shall be all right again. But take a seat, sir. May we venture to offer you anything?" Although his clerk had more than once alluded to his responsibilities, M. Fortunat was amazed.
Chupin feared so, and accordingly turning quickly to his employer, he remarked: "To say nothing of the fact that this fine gentleman has swindled you outrageously, shrewd as you are cheating you out of the forty thousand francs you lent him, and which he was to pay you eighty thousand for." M. Fortunat cast a withering look at his clerk, but the mischief was done: denial was useless.
Vantrasson had brought not one sheet of stamped paper, but two. A bad pen and some muddy ink were produced, and M. Fortunat began to draw up an acknowledgment according to the established formula.
M. Isidore Fortunat's appearance was incontestably respectable, but they were well aware that those strange men styled detectives are perfectly conversant with the art of dressing to perfection. So the hotelkeeper quickly decided on his course. "Your idea is an excellent one," he said to M. Fortunat.
Her sad face wore an expression of melancholy resignation; and there were signs of recent tears in her swollen eyes, surrounded by bluish circles. She glanced at her visitor, and, in anything but an encouraging tone exclaimed: "You desired to speak with me, I believe?" M. Fortunat bowed, almost disconcerted.
"Go to the devil, and your account with you!" growled Madame Vantrasson. But Fortunat did not hear this. He was already walking down the road by the side of Chupin, who was saying: "Well, here you are, at last, m'sieur! I thought you had taken a lease of that old barrack. If ever I come here again, I'll bring a foot-warmer with me."
Her house was always filled to over-flowing; and at the very moment when the Marquis de Valorsay and M. Fortunat were speaking of her, a dozen coroneted carriages stood before her door, and her rooms were thronged with guests. It was a little past midnight, and the bi-weekly card party had just been made up, when a footman announced, "Monsieur le Vicomte de Coralth! Monsieur Pascal Ferailleur!"
M. Fortunat bowed with a rather pompous, but at the same time obsequious air. "I have only a few more words to say," he declared. "M. de Chalusse having no other heir, I have come to acquaint you with your rights." "Very good; continue, if you please." "You have only to present yourself, and establish your identity, to be put in possession of your brother's property."
It was not long before M. Fortunat had reason to congratulate himself on his foresight, for the breakfast began with a dish of shrimps, and M. Casimir had not finished his twelfth, washed down by a glass of chablis, before he declared that he could see no impropriety in confiding certain things to a friend.
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