At last he said the child was dead; and showed her the
certificate of death. Then she came back here, and for a while, alas!
she disgraced the parish. But all at once she changed--she got a message
that her child was alive. To her it was like being born again. It was at
this time they were going to drive her from the parish. But the Seigneur
and then the Cure spoke for her, and so did I--at last."

He paused and plaintively admired himself in the mirror. He was grateful
that he had been clean-shaved that morning, and he was content to catch
the citrine odour of the bergamot upon his hair.

New phases of the most interesting case Charley had ever defended spread
out before him--the case which had given him his friend Jo Portugais,
which had turned his own destiny. Yet he could not quite trace in it the
vital association of this vain Notary now in the confessional mood.

"You behaved very well," said Charley tentatively.

"Ah, you say that, knowing so little! What will you say when you know
all--ah! That I should take a stand also was important. Neither the
Seigneur nor the Cure was married; I was. I have been long-suffering for
a cause. My marital felicity has been bruised--bruised--but not broken."

"There are the twins," said Charley, with a half-closed eye.

"Could woman ask greater proof?" urged the Notary seriously, for the
other's voice had been so well masked that he did not catch its satire.
"But see my peril, and mark the ground of my interest in this poor
wanton! Yet a woman--a woman-frail creatures, as we know, and to be
pitied, not made more pitiable by the stronger sex.... But, see now!
Why should I have perilled mine own conjugal peace, given ground for
suspicion even--for I am unfortunate, unfortunate in the exterior with
which Dame Nature has honoured me!" Again he looked in the mirror with
sad complacency.

On these words his listener offered no comment, and he continued:

"For this reason I lifted my voice for the poor wanton. It was I who
wrote the letter to her that her child was alive. I did it with high
purpose--I foresaw that she would change her ways if she thought her
child was living. Was I mistaken? No. I am an observer of human nature.
Intellect conquered. 'Io triumphe'. The poor fly-away changed, led a new
life. Ever since then she has tried to get the man--the lawyer--to tell
her where her child is. He has not done so. He has said the child is
dead--always. When she seemed to give up