ow voice, a stifled cough, the faint murmuring
of the two sisters' prayer reminded Jansoulet of the confused, faraway
sensation of hours of waiting around the confessional, in a corner of
his village church, when the great religious festivals were drawing
near.

At last it came his turn to enter the sanctum, and if any shadow of
doubt concerning Maitre Le Merquier remained in his mind, that doubt
vanished when he saw that high-studded office, simple and severe in
appearance,--although somewhat more decorated than the waiting-room--of
which the advocate made a framework for his rigid principles and his
long, thin, stooping, narrow-shouldered person, eternally squeezed into
a black coat too short in the sleeves, from which protruded two flat,
square, black hands, two clubs of India ink covered with swollen veins
like hieroglyphics. In the clerical deputy's sallow complexion, the
complexion of the Lyonnais turned mouldy between his two rivers, there
was a certain animation, due to his varying expression, sometimes
sparkling but impenetrable behind his spectacles, more frequently keen,
suspicious and threatening over those same spectacles, and surrounded by
the retreating shadow which follows the arch of the eyebrow when the eye
is raised and the head low.

After a greeting that was almost cordial in comparison with the cold
salutation which the two colleagues exchanged at the Chamber, an "I was
expecting you," uttered with a purpose perhaps, the advocate waved the
Nabob to the chair near his desk, bade the smug domestic, dressed in
black from head to foot, not to "tighten the sack-cloth with the
scourge," but to stay away until the bell should ring for him, arranged
a few scattered papers, and then, crossing his legs, burying himself in
his armchair in the crouching attitude of the man who is making ready to
listen, who becomes all ears, he took his chin in his hand and sat with
his eyes fixed on a long curtain of green ribbed velvet that fell from
the ceiling to the floor opposite him.

It was a decisive moment, an embarrassing situation. But Jansoulet did
not hesitate. It was one of the poor Nabob's boasts that he understood
men as well as Mora. And the keen scent, which, he said, had never
deceived him, warned him that he was at that moment in presence of a
rigid, immovable honesty, a conscience of solid rock unassailable by
pick-axe or powder. "My conscience!" So he suddenly changed his
programme, cast aside the str