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236 "Yes, Monsieur. It is rather a long story. If I were not afraid of tiring you—" Madame Leroux began deprecatingly.

"You will not tire me. I want to hear every detail, however insignificant."

"Then, Monsieur, you must know that in consequence of Madame's kindness and of the lavish generosity of Monsieur Georges, and also by reason of a good many presents from Monsieur de Maucroix, who threw about his money with full hands, I was very comfortably off at the time of Madame's sad death. I had buried my poor mother two years before, and I had been able to save almost every penny of my wages. I felt, therefore, independent of service. The term would have to be paid by Madame Lemarque, who inherited all her daughter's property, and as she had a horror of the rooms in which her poor daughter had lived, and could not bear to be alone in them for an hour, she asked me to stay till the end of the quarter. Then, as I told you, people came in crowds to see the rooms; and as I had power to show them, or to refuse to show them, just as I pleased, I need not tell you that I made a good deal of money in this way. I did not make a trade of showing the rooms, Monsieur; I never asked any one for money, but on the other hand I did not refuse it when it was offered to me. This continued for some weeks; then came the sale. All the handsome articles of furniture, all the pictures and ornaments, fetched high prices. They were bought by fashionable people as souvenirs of the beautiful Marie Prévol. But the plainer furniture, the things which my mistress had paid for out of her own earnings, were sold for very little, and these I bought. I had conferred with the landlord, and he had agreed to retain me as his tenant. With the furniture which I bought at the sale, and with other things which I picked up cheaply among the secondhand dealers, I contrived to make the rooms very comfortable as furnished lodgings, and from that time to this I have carried them on with reasonable profit. Three years later I was able to take the fourth floor; and two years after that, on the second floor falling vacant, I ventured to become tenant for that also. There remains only the first floor, which is let to an old lady of ninety; and if Providence prospers Leroux and me, we ought to be able to take the first floor by the time the old lady dies."

"You will then be lessees of the whole house; a bold speculation, Madame, but one which with your prudent habits will doubtless succeed. But to return to this man Georges, whom you saw in Paris after the murder."

"I was accustomed to go every week to the cemetery of Père Lachaise, Monsieur, to look at my dear mistress's grave, and to lay my humble offering of flowers upon the marble slab which had been placed there at Madame Lemarque's expense. It bore for inscription only the one word—Marie: Madame