rrelled,
of unusually fine make, and very elegant. On the beautifully carved
woodwork the manufacturer's name, Clebb, was engraven.

"When did you last fire this gun?" asked the magistrate.

"Some four or five days ago."

"What for?"

"To shoot some rabbits who infested my woods."

M. Galpin raised and lowered the cock with all possible care: he noticed
that it was the Remington patent. Then he opened the chamber, and found
that the gun was loaded. Each barrel had a cartridge in it. Then he
put the gun back in its place, and, pulling from his pocket the leaden
cartridge-case which Pitard had found, he showed it to M. de Boiscoran,
and asked him,--

"Do you recognize this?"

"Perfectly!" replied the other. "It is a case of one of the cartridges
which I have probably thrown away as useless."

"Do you think you are the only one in this country who has a gun by this
maker?"

"I do not think it: I am quite sure of it."

"So that you must, as a matter of course, have been at a spot where such
a cartridge-case as this has been found?"

"Not necessarily. I have often seen children pick up these things, and
play with them."

The clerk, while he made his pen fly across his paper, could not resist
the temptation of making all kinds of faces. He was too well acquainted
with lawyers' tactics not to understand M. Galpin's policy perfectly
well, and to see how cunningly it was devised to make every fact
strengthen the suspicion against M. de Boiscoran.

"It is a close game," he said to himself.

The magistrate had taken a seat.

"If that is so," he began again, "I beg you will give me an account of
how you spent the evening after eight o'clock: do not hurry, consider,
take your time; for your answers are of the utmost importance."

M. de Boiscoran had so far remained quite cool; but his calmness
betrayed one of those terrible storms within, which may break forth, no
one knows when. This warning, and, even more so, the tone in which it
was given, revolted him as a most hideous hypocrisy. And, breaking out
all of a sudden, he cried,--

"After all, sir, what do you want of me? What am I accused of?"

M. Galpin did not stir. He replied,--

"You will hear it at the proper time. First answer my question, and
believe me in your own interest. Answer frankly. What did you do last
night?"

"How do I know? I walked about."

"That is no answer."

"Still it is so. I went out with no specific purpose: I walked at
haph