e with him. However powerful his memory may be, how can he
recall an answer which he may have given weeks and weeks before? The
magistrate, however, remembers it; and twenty times, if need be,
he brings it up again. And as the small snowflake may become an
irresistible avalanche, so an insignificant word, uttered at haphazard,
forgotten, then recalled, commented upon, and enlarged may become
crushing evidence.

Jacques now experienced this. These questions had been put to him so
skilfully, and at such long intervals of time, that he had totally
forgotten them; and yet now, when he recalled his answers, he had to
acknowledge that he had confessed his purpose to devote that evening to
some business of great importance.

"That is fearful!" he cried.

And, overcome by the terrible reality of M. Folgat's apprehension, he
added,--

"How can we get out of that?"

"I told you," replied M. Folgat, "we must find some plausible
explanation."

"I am sure I am incapable of that."

The young lawyer seemed to reflect a moment, and then he said,--

"You have been a prisoner while I have been free. For a month now I have
thought this matter over."

"Ah!"

"Where was your wedding to be?"

"At my house at Boiscoran."

"Where was the religious ceremony to take place?"

"At the church at Brechy."

"Have you ever spoken of that to the priest?"

"Several times. One day especially, when we discussed it in a pleasant
way, he said jestingly to me, 'I shall have you, after all in my
confessional.'"

M. Folgat almost trembled with satisfaction, and Jacques saw it.

"Then the priest at Brechy was your friend?"

"An intimate friend. He sometimes came to dine with me quite
unceremoniously, and I never passed him without shaking hands with him."

The young lawyer's joy was growing perceptibly.

"Well," he said, "my explanation is becoming quite plausible. Just hear
what I have positively ascertained to be the fact. In the time from nine
to eleven o'clock, on the night of the crime, there was not a soul at
the parsonage in Brechy. The priest was dining with M. Besson, at his
house; and his servant had gone out to meet him with a lantern."

"I understand," said M. Magloire.

"Why should you not have gone to see the priest at Brechy, my dear
client? In the first place, you had to arrange the details of the
ceremony with him; then, as he is your friend, and a man of experience,
and a priest, you wanted to ask him for his advi