"Will you be good enough to verify the amount ?" continued she, emptying the bag upon the table; "I think it is correct.

You must have somewhere a memorandum of the transaction in writing." Julien began to look through the papers, but he got bewildered with the number of rough notes jotted down on various slips of paper, until at last, in an impatient fit of vexation, he flung the whole bundle away, scattering the loose sheets all over the floor.
"Who can find anything in such a chaos ?" he exclaimed.

"I can't see my way through it, and when I try to get information from the people here, they seem to have an understanding among themselves to leave me under a wrong impression, or even to make my uncertainties still greater! Ah! Mademoiselle Reine, you were right! I do not understand the ways of your country folk.

Every now and then I am tempted to leave everything just as it stands, and get away from this village, where the people mistrust me and treat me like an enemy!" Reine gazed at him with a look of compassionate surprise.

Stooping quietly down, she picked up the scattered papers, and while putting them in order on the table, she happened to see the one relating to her own business.
"Here, Monsieur de Buxieres," said she, "here is the very note you were looking for.