Pelletier threw a sidelong glance at his companion. The doctor’s air of good-fellowship destroyed the sort of mistrust which his words had excited.

‘If Bouchereau died, his wife would be rich?’ said the captain, half under his breath, but with an interrogative accent.

‘Gracious!’ answered the doctor, ‘this time it wouldn’t be by one hundred thousand, but by two hundred thousand that you would have to count the crowns of the dowry.’

‘You are exaggerating,’ cried the captain whose eyes shone with a sudden brilliance.

‘The calculation is an easy one to do,’ responded Dr. Magnan with an assured air. ‘Madame Bouchereau has inherited from her father one hundred thousand francs; she is expecting one hundred and fifty thousand from her mother: and her husband will leave her at least three hundred and fifty thousand: add them up.’

‘Then he has left her everything by his marriage settlement?’ asked Pelletier, whose emotion had grown at each figure articulated by his companion.

‘Everything,’ answered the doctor in a solemn voice.

This powerful monosyllable was as good as a long discourse. With a companion whose intelligence he could have esteemed, Dr. Magnan would not have added a single word. But finding the captain richer in shoulders than brain, as he had said of him some hours before, he was not afraid to insist a little heavily on an idea from which he expected a magic result.

‘You who have the matrimonial bump well developed,’ he went on with an air of pleasantry, ‘there’s a match that would suit you; a young woman, pretty, amiable, and a fortune of six hundred thousand francs. It is true that to bring an affair like this safely to harbour, one wouldn’t need to begin by killing the husband.’

Pelletier affected to laugh, though his face had taken an instant ago a dreamy expression. Certain of having attained his end, the doctor alleged a visit, and quitted his companion, whom he left at the Boulevard, smitten to the heart by the six hundred thousand francs of the presumptive widow.

All at once, and with the furious rapidity of a wounded boar, the captain went from the Madeleine to the Bastille without a bus: at the Porte Saint Martin, his decision was made.

‘Without being aware of it,’ he thought, ‘the doctor has given me excellent advice: fight with Bouchereau! I’m not such a fool; I would kill him; my hand is so unlucky! Then how would I dare to appear before Virginia? The little lady doesn’t look on me with an indifferent eye; by good luck, in courting her these three months, I’ve taken the initiative, so that, when the great day does arrive, she ’ll not be able to suppose that I love her for her fortune. Kill Bouchereau? That would be stupid. Let him die his own fine death, the dear man, I’ll make no objections. According to all appearances I shall have enough opportunity to fight with my rivals when his wife’s a widow. Six hundred thousand francs! There ’ll be a crowd of them: but let the others look out for themselves. I’ve got my name down first, and I’m not the man to let anybody walk over my body.’

Next morning, the captain entered Dr. Magnan’s house well before the hour reserved for consultations.

‘Doctor,’ he said to him with an air of military frankness, ‘what you said to me yesterday about Bouchereau’s illness, has made me reflect seriously. It seems to me that, in all good faith, I can hardly fight with a man who has no more than six months to live. Suppose that I would him. A sword cut, of which another man would get better, would perhaps be fatal to him, considering his condition; and then I would reproach myself all my life for having killed an old friend for a stupid trifle. Did he tell you the cause of our quarrel?’

‘No,’ said the doctor, who, in his quality of negotiator, thought he had the right to tell lies.