at nine
o'clock, and the moon was then shining. The inspector of customs took
him severely to task, and informed him that a new moon had made its
appearance the day before, as one could easily find out by looking in
the calendar. The tinker shrugged his shoulders, as if to say that in
such conjunctures even the calendar was not to be trusted.

When it grew dusk the people wandered homeward, in pairs and groups,
now chatting, no-w silent, now whispering with an air of mystery. Like
dogs that have become suspicious and keep circling about the same spot,
they strained with hungry eagerness for a new excitement. They looked
searchingly in front of them, heard with sharpened ears every word that
was uttered. Some cast suspicious side-glances at each other; those who
had money closed their doors and counted their money over. At night in
the taverns the guests told of the great riches that the miserly
Fualdes had accumulated; he had, it was said, sold La Morne only
because he shrank from compelling the lessee, Grammont, who was his
nephew, by legal means to pay two years' arrears of rent.

The spoken word hung halting on the lips, carrying a half-framed
thought in its train. It was an accepted fact among the citizens that
Fualdes, the liberal Protestant, a former official of the Empire, had
been annoyed by threats against his life. The dark fancies spun busily
at the web of fear. Those who still believed it was an accident
refrained from expressing their reasons; they had to guard against
suspicion falling upon themselves. Already a band of confederates was
designated, drawn from the Legitimist party, now become inimical,
threatening, arrogant. Dark hatred pointed to the Jesuits and their
missions as instigators of the mysterious deed. How often had justice
halted when the power of the mighty shielded the criminal!

The spring sun of the ensuing day shone upon tense, agitated, eager
faces gradually inflamed to fierceness. The Royalists began to fear for
their belongings; in order to protect themselves, infected as they,
too, were by the general horror which emanated from the unknown, they
admitted that a crime had been perpetrated. But how? and where? and
through whom?

A cobbler has a better memory, as a rule, and a more active brain, than
other people. The shoemaker, Escarboeuf, used to gather his neighbors
and trusty comrades about him now and then at the hour of vespers. He
remembered exactly what the doctor had said o