7 Rue de
Sentier. Pardon my brevity; but I count on your admirable good
sense to guess what I am unable to explain.
"Tout a vous,"
"Give me the letter," said the lawyer, "that I may see whether it is
correct before signing it."
The unfortunate wife, who had been taken off her guard by this letter,
which bristled with the most barbarous terms of legal science, gave up
the letter. As soon as Lebrun got possession of the wily script he
began to complain, to twist himself about, as if in pain, and to
demand one little attention after another of his wife. Madame left the
room for two minutes during which the advocate leaped from his bed,
folded a piece of paper in the form of a letter and hid the missive
written by his wife. When Anna returned, the clever husband seized the
blank paper, made her address it to the friend of his, to whom the
letter which he had taken out was written, and the poor creature
handed the blank letter to his servant. Lebrun seemed to grow
gradually calmer; he slept or pretended to do so, and the next morning
he still affected to feel strange pains. Two days afterwards he tore
off the first leaf of the letter and put an "e" to the word _tout_ in
the phrase "tout a vous."[*] He folded mysteriously the paper which
contained the innocent forgery, sealed it, left his bedroom and called
the maid, saying to her:
[*] Thus giving a feminine ending to the signature, and lending the
impression that the note emanated from the wife personally--J.
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