,
notified of the arrival of Pigoult, left the prisoners with the
gendarmes and returned to the dining-room to dictate the indictment.
The justice of peace called his attention to the condition of Michu's
clothes and related the circumstances of his arrest.

"They must have killed the senator and plastered the body up in some
wall," said Pigoult.

"I begin to fear it," answered Lechesneau. "Where did you carry that
plaster?" he said to Gothard.

The boy began to cry.

"The law frightens him," said Michu, whose eyes were darting flames like
those of a lion in the toils.

The servants, who had been detained at the village by order of the
mayor, now arrived and filled the antechamber where Catherine and
Gothard were weeping. To all the questions of the director of the jury
and the justice of peace Gothard replied by sobs; and by dint of weeping
he brought on a species of convulsion which alarmed them so much that
they let him alone. The little scamp, perceiving that he was no longer
watched, looked at Michu with a grin, and Michu signified his approval
by a glance. Lechesneau left the justice of peace and returned to the
stables.

"Monsieur," said Madame d'Hauteserre, at last, addressing Pigoult; "can
you explain these arrests?"

"The gentlemen are accused of abducting the senator by armed force and
keeping him a prisoner; for we do not think they have murdered him--in
spite of appearances," replied Pigoult.

"What penalties are attached to the crime?" asked Monsieur d'Hauteserre.

"Well, as the old law continues in force, and they are not amenable
under the Code, the penalty is death," replied the justice.

"Death!" cried Madame d'Hauteserre, fainting away.

The abbe now came in with his sister, who stopped to speak to Catherine
and Madame Durieu.

"We haven't even seen your cursed senator!" said Michu.

"Madame Marion, Madame Grevin, Monsieur Grevin, the senator's valet, and
Violette all tell another tale," replied Pigoult, with the sour smile of
magisterial conviction.

"I don't understand a thing about it," said Michu, dumbfounded by his
reply, and beginning now to believe that his masters and himself were
entangled in some plot which had been laid against them.

Just then the party from the stables returned. Laurence went up to
Madame d'Hauteserre, who recovered her senses enough to say: "The
penalty is death!"

"Death!" repeated Laurence, looking at the four gentlemen.

The word excited a gener