We have seen how she hesitated about leaving the portress alone with the sick man:-- "Madame Perrache," she said to her, "you won't leave him, the poor darling, will you, till I get back ?" It may have been noticed that Cerizet had not decided on any definite course of action in the new affair he was now undertaking.

The part of doctor, which for a moment he thought of assuming, frightened him, and he gave himself out, as we have seen, to Madame Perrache as the business agent of his accomplice.

Once alone, he began to see that his original idea complicated with a doctor, a nurse, and a notary, presented the most serious difficulties.

A regular will drawn in favor of Madame Cardinal was not a thing to be improvised in a moment.

It would take some time to acclimatize the idea in the surly and suspicious mind of the old pauper, and death, which was close at hand, might play them a trick at any moment, and balk the most careful preparations.
It was true that unless a will were made the income of eight thousand francs on the Grand Livre and the house in the rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth would go to the heirs-at-law, and Madame Cardinal would get only her share of the property; but the abandonment of this visible portion of the inheritance was the surest means of laying hands on the invisible part of it.