the most
astonishing things without moving a muscle. His name was Constant.

He bowed to the magistrate, and excused himself for his tardiness. He
had been busy with some book-keeping, which he did every morning; and
his wife had had to send after him.

"You are still in good time," said M. Daburon: "but we shall soon have
plenty of work: so you had better get your paper ready."

Five minutes later, the usher introduced M. Noel Gerdy. He entered
with an easy manner, like an advocate who was well acquainted with the
Palais, and who knew its winding ways. He in no wise resembled, this
morning, old Tabaret's friend; still less could he have been recognized
as Madame Juliette's lover. He was entirely another being, or rather he
had resumed his every-day bearing. From his firm step, his placid
face, one would never imagine that, after an evening of emotion and
excitement, after a secret visit to his mistress, he had passed the
night by the pillow of a dying woman, and that woman his mother, or at
least one who had filled his mother's place.

What a contrast between him and the magistrate!

M. Daburon had not slept either: but one could easily see that in his
feebleness, in his anxious look, in the dark, circles about his eyes.
His shirt-front was all rumpled, and his cuffs were far from clean.
Carried away by the course of events, the mind had forgotten the body.
Noel's well-shaved chin, on the contrary, rested upon an irreproachably
white cravat; his collar did not show a crease; his hair and his
whiskers had been most carefully brushed. He bowed to M. Daburon, and
held out the summons he had received.

"You summoned me, sir," he said; "and I am here awaiting your orders."

The investigating magistrate had met the young advocate several times in
the lobbies of the Palais; and he knew him well by sight. He remembered
having heard M. Gerdy spoken of as a man of talent and promise,
whose reputation was fast rising. He therefore welcomed him as a
fellow-workman, and invited him to be seated.

The preliminaries common in the examinations of all witnesses ended;
the name, surname, age, place of business, and so on having been written
down, the magistrate, who had followed his clerk with his eyes while he
was writing, turned towards Noel.

"I presume you know, M. Gerdy," he began, "the matters in connection
with which you are troubled with appearing before me?"

"Yes, sir, the murder of that poor old woman at La Joncher