The old hag never could do anything at the right time."

He closed her eyes and laid her on the floor. Then the good and noble
feelings which lay at the bottom of his soul came back to him, and,
half forgetting his hidden treasure, he cried out mournfully:--

"Oh! my poor companion, have I lost you?--you who understood me so
well! Oh! you were my real treasure. There it lies, my treasure! With
you, my peace of mind, my affections, all, are gone. If you had only
known what good it would have done me to live two nights longer, you
would have lived, solely to please me, my poor sister! Ah, Jeanne!
thirteen hundred thousand crowns! Won't that wake you?--No, she is
dead!"

Thereupon, he sat down, and said no more; but two great tears issued
from his eyes and rolled down his hollow cheeks; then, with strange
exclamations of grief, he locked up the room and returned to the king.
Louis XI. was struck with the expression of sorrow on the moistened
features of his old friend.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Ah! sire, misfortunes never come singly. My sister is dead. She
precedes me there below," he said, pointing to the floor with a
dreadful gesture.

"Enough!" cried Louis XI., who did not like to hear of death.

"I make you my heir. I care for nothing now. Here are my keys. Hang
me, if that's your good pleasure. Take all, ransack the house; it is