"Go to the devil!" broke in the voice.

"But, sir"--

"Let me sleep, rascal. I have not been able to close an eye till now."
The magistrate, becoming impatient, pushed the servant aside, and,
seizing the door-knob tried to open it; it was locked inside. But he
lost no time in saying,--

"It is I, M. de Boiscoran: open, if you please!"

"Ah, dear M. Galpin!" replied the voice cheerfully.

"I must speak to you."

"And I am at your service, illustrious jurist. Just give me time to veil
my Apollonian form in a pair of trousers, and I appear."

Almost immediately, the door opened; and M. de Boiscoran presented
himself, his hair dishevelled, his eyes heavy with sleep, but looking
bright in his youth and full health, with smiling lips and open hands.

"Upon my word!" he said. "That was a happy inspiration you had, my dear
Galpin. You come to join me at breakfast?"

And, bowing to M. Daubigeon, he added,--

"Not to say how much I thank you for bringing our excellent commonwealth
attorney with you. This is a veritable judicial visit"--

But he paused, chilled as he was by M. Daubigeon's icy face, and amazed
at M. Galpin's refusal to take his proffered hand.

"Why," he said, "what is the matter, my dear friend?"

The magistrate had never been stiffer in his life, when he replied,--

"We shall have to forget our relations, sir. It is not as a friend I
come to-day, but as a magistrate."

M. de Boiscoran looked confounded; but not a shadow of trouble appeared
on his frank and open face.

"I'll be hanged," he said, "if I understand"--

"Let us go in," said M. Galpin.

They went in; and, as they passed the door, Mechinet whispered into the
attorney's ear,--

"Sir, that man is certainly innocent. A guilty man would never have
received us thus."

"Silence, sir!" said the commonwealth attorney, however much he was
probably of his clerk's opinion. "Silence!"

And grave and sad he went and stood in one of the window embrasures. M.
Galpin remained standing in the centre of the room, trying to see every
thing in it, and to fix it in his memory, down to the smallest details.
The prevailing disorder showed clearly how hastily M. de Boiscoran had
gone to bed the night before. His clothes, his boots, his shirt, his
waistcoat, and his straw hat lay scattered about on the chairs and
on the floor. He wore those light gray trousers, which had been
succcessively seen and recognized by Cocoleu, by Ribot, by Gaudry, and
by