Casimir told me, monsieur," was his reply.

He then wished to furnish some particulars, but M. Fortunat had
already resumed his furious tramp to and fro, giving vent to his
wrath and despair in incoherent exclamations. "Forty thousand
francs lost!" he exclaimed. "Forty thousand francs, counted out
there on my desk! I see them yet, counted and placed in the hand
of the Marquis de Valorsay in exchange for his signature. My
savings for a number of years, and I have only a worthless scrap
of paper to show for them. That cursed marquis! And he was to
come here this evening, and I was to give him ten thousand francs
more. They are lying there in that drawer. Let him come, the
wretch, let him come!"

Anger had positively brought foam to M. Fortunat's lips, and any
one seeing him then would subsequently have had but little
confidence in his customary good-natured air and unctuous
politeness. "And yet the marquis is as much to be pitied as I
am," he continued. "He loses as much, even more! And such a sure
thing it seemed, too! What speculation can a fellow engage in
after this? And a man must put his money somewhere; he can't bury
it in the ground!"

Chupin listened with an air of profound commiseration; but it was
only assumed. He was inwardly jubilant, for his interest in the
affair was in direct opposition to that of his employer. Indeed,
if M. Fortunat lost forty thousand francs by the Count de
Chalusse's death, Chupin expected to make a hundred francs
commission on the funeral.