"For sure, this very minute. Why should the poor lady wait? It's a
lonely time of day, this, the evening, when the long night's ahead."

A moment later the two were walking along the street to the door of Mme.
Popincourt's lodgings, and people turned to look at the pair, one
carrying something covered with a white cloth, evidently a savoury dish
of some kind--the other with a cage in which a handsome canary hopped
about, well pleased with the world.

At Mme. Popincourt's door Mme. Glozel took the cage and went upstairs.
Jean Jacques, left behind, paced backwards and forwards in front of the
house waiting and looking up, for Mme. Glozel had said that behind the
front window on the third floor was where the sick woman lived. He had
not long to wait. The setting sun shining full on the window had roused
the bird, and he began to pour out a flood of delicious melody which
flowed on and on, causing the people in the street to stay their steps
and look up. Jean Jacques' face, as he listened, had something very like
a smile. There was that in the smile belonging to the old pride, which
in days gone by had made him say when he looked at his domains at the
Manor Cartier--his houses, his mills, his store, his buildings and his
lands--"It is all mine. It all belongs to Jean Jacques Barbille."

Suddenly, however, there came a sharp pause in the singing, and after
that a cry--a faint, startled cry. Then Mme. Glozel's head was thrust
out of the window three floors up, and she called to Jean Jacques to come
quickly. As she bade him come, some strange premonition flashed to Jean
Jacques, and with thumping heart he hastened up the staircase. Outside a
bedroom door, Mme. Glozel met him. She was so excited she could only
whisper.