The advocate was ugly, short,
stumpy, square-shouldered, mean-looking, and, moreover, a husband.
Anna, tall and pretty, had almond eyes, white skin and refined
features. She was all love; and passion lighted up her glance with a
bewitching expression. While her family was poor, Maitre Lebrun had an
income of twelve thousand francs. That explains all.
One evening Lebrun got home looking extremely chop-fallen. He went
into his study to work; but he soon came back shivering to his wife,
for he had caught a fever and hurriedly went to bed. There he lay
groaning and lamenting for his clients and especially for a poor widow
whose fortune he was to save the very next day by effecting a
compromise. An appointment had been made with certain business men and
he was quite incapable of keeping it. After having slept for a quarter
of an hour, he begged his wife in a feeble voice to write to one of
his intimate friends, asking him to take his (Lebrun's) place next day
at the conference. He dictated a long letter and followed with his eye
the space taken up on the paper by his phrases. When he came to begin
the second page of the last sheet, the advocate set out to describe to
his confrere the joy which his client would feel on the signing of the
compromise, and the fatal page began with these words:
"My good friend, go for Heaven's sake to Madame Vernon's at once;
you are expected with impatience there; she lives at No.
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