banknotes. I never saw such an expression of cupidity as the flickering lamp revealed in those two countenances. The woman, especially, was hideous; her usual feverish tremulousness was intensified, her countenance had become livid, and her eyes resembled burning coals.
“ ‘Why,’ she inquired in a hoarse voice, ‘did you invite him to sleep here tonight?’
“ ‘Why?’ said Caderousse with a shudder; ‘why, that he might not have the trouble of returning to Beaucaire.’
“ ‘Ah,’ responded the woman, with an expression impossible to describe; ‘I thought it was for something else.’
“ ‘Woman, woman—why do you have such ideas?’ cried Caderousse; ‘or, if you have them, why don’t you keep them to yourself?’
“ ‘Well,’ said La Carconte, after a moment’s pause, ‘you are not a man.’
“ ‘What do you mean?’ added Caderousse.
“ ‘If you had been a man, you would not have let him go from here.’
“ ‘Woman!’
“ ‘Or else he should not have reached Beaucaire.’
“ ‘Woman!’
“ ‘The road takes a turn—he is obliged to follow it—while alongside of the canal there is a shorter road.’
“ ‘Woman!—you offend the good God. There—listen!’
“And at this moment there was a tremendous peal of thunder, while the livid lightning illumined the room, and the thunder, rolling away in the