the matter will bring him fifty thousand,--and well-earned, too."

"After all, the count, so they tell me, doesn't like Presles. And then
he is so rich, what does it matter what it costs him?" said the
inn-keeper. "I have never seen him, myself."

"Nor I," said Pere Leger. "But he must be intending to live there, or
why should he spend two hundred thousand francs in restoring the
chateau? It is as fine now as the King's own palace."

"Well, well," said the inn-keeper, "it was high time for Moreau to
feather his nest."

"Yes, for if the masters come there," replied Leger, "they won't keep
their eyes in their pockets."

The count lost not a word of this conversation, which was held in a
low voice, but not in a whisper.

"Here I have actually found the proofs I was going down there to
seek," he thought, looking at the fat farmer as he entered the
kitchen. "But perhaps," he added, "it is only a scheme; Moreau may not
have listened to it."

So unwilling was he to believe that his steward could lend himself to
such a conspiracy.

Pierrotin here came out to water his horses. The count, thinking that
the driver would probably breakfast with the farmer and the
inn-keeper, feared some thoughtless indiscretion.