"I've no more eaten your bread and slept under your roof than you have.
Pish! You were living then on another man's fortune, now you're living
on what your wife earns."

The Seigneur did not understand yet. But there was a strange light of
suspicion in his eyes, a nervous rage knotting his forehead.

"My land and my earnings are my own, and I have never lived on another
man's fortune. If you mean that the late Seigneur made a will--that
canard--"

"It was no canard." Tardif laughed hatefully. "There was a will right
enough."

"Where is it? I've heard that fool's gossip before."

"Where is it? Ask your wife; she knows. Ask your loving Tardif, he
knows."

"Where is the will, Tardif?" asked the Seigneur in a voice that, in his
own ears, seemed to come from an infinite distance; to Tardif's ears it
was merely tuneless and harsh.

"In M'sieu' Fournel's pocket, or Madame's. What's the difference? The
price is the same, and you keep your eyes shut and play the Seigneur, and
eat and drink what they give you just the same."

Now the Seigneur understood. His eyes went blind for a moment, and his
hands twitched convulsively on the embossed address he had been rolling