victim like a bird of prey.

"If you mean that I am to bribe you--"

"Fie, the nasty word! But just a small present, a pretty gift, one or
two yellow bits, twenty, thirty, forty francs--you'd better." She shook
the soft arm she held roughly, and anything seemed preferable than to be
touched by this horrible woman.

"Wait, wait!" cried the Countess, shivering all over, and, feeling
hastily for her purse, she took out several napoleons.

"Aha! oho! One, two, three," said the searcher in a fat, wheedling
voice. "Four, yes, four, five;" and she clinked the coins together in
her palm, while a covetous light came into her faded eyes at the joyous
sound. "Five--make it five at once, d'ye hear me?--or I'll call them in
and tell them. That will go against you, my princess. What, try to
bribe a poor old woman, Mother Tontaine, honest and incorruptible
Tontaine? Five, then, five!"

With trembling haste the Countess emptied the whole contents of her
purse in the old hag's hand.

"_Bon aubaine_. Nice pickings. It is a misery what they pay me here. I
am, oh, so poor, and I have children, many babies. You will not tell
them--the police--you dare not. No, no, no."

Thus muttering to herself, she shambled across the room to a corner,
where she stowed the money safely away. Then she came back, showed the
bit of lace, and pressed it into the Countess's hands.