If he is of the same order as John, why is he
not staying with him at the Carmelites? If he is collecting money, why,
after making a collection in one place, does he not move on to another,
instead of returning and bothering people who have given him money only
the day before? If he is a Trappist and does not want to stay with the
Carmelites like the other, why does he not go back to his own convent?
What is this wandering monk? And how does John Mauprat, who has told
several people that he does not know him, know him so well that they
lunch together from time to time in a tavern at Crevant? I made up my
mind, then, to give evidence, though it might, in a measure, do harm
to M. Bernard, so as to be able to say what I am now saying, even if it
should be of no use. But as you never allow witnesses sufficient time
to try to verify what they have reason to believe, I started off
immediately for my woods, where I live like the foxes, with a
determination not to quit them until I had discovered what this monk was
doing in the country. So I put myself on his track and I have discovered
who he is; he is the murderer of Edmee de Mauprat; his name is Antony
Mauprat."

This revelation caused a great stir on the bench and among the public.
Every one looked around for John Mauprat, whose face was nowhere to be
seen.

"What proof have you of this?" said the president.

"I am about to tell you," replied Patience. "Having learnt from
the landlady at Crevant, to whom I have occasionally been of some
assistance, that the two Trappists used to lunch at her tavern from time
to time, as I have said, I went and took up my abode about half a league
from here, in a hermitage known as Le Trou aux Fades, situated in the
middle of the woods and open to the first comer, furniture and all. It
is a cave in the rock, containing a seat in the shape of a big stone and
nothing else. I lived there for a couple of days on roots and bits of
bread that they occasionally brought me from the tavern. It is against
my principles to live in a tavern. On the third day the landlady's
little boy came and informed me that the two monks were about to sit
down to a meal. I hastened back, and hid myself in a cellar which
opens into the garden. The door of this cellar is quite close to the
apple-tree under which these gentlemen were taking luncheon in the open
air. John was sober; the other was eating like a Carmelite and drinking
like a Franciscan. I could hear and