wiping
away his tears. "I have come here not for their sakes, but for yours. I
have come to spare you remorse, for I love all who took an interest in
Lucien, just as I will give my hatred full play against all who helped
to cut off his life--men or women!

"What can a convict more or less matter to me?" he went on, after a
short pause. "A convict is no more in my eyes than an emmet is in yours.
I am like the Italian brigands--fine men they are! If a traveler is
worth ever so little more than the charge of their musket, they shoot
him dead.

"I thought only of you.--I got the young man to make a clean breast of
it; he was bound to trust me, we had been chained together. Theodore
is very good stuff; he thought he was doing his mistress a good turn by
undertaking to sell or pawn stolen goods; but he is no more guilty of
the Nanterre job than you are. He is a Corsican; it is their way to
revenge themselves and kill each other like flies. In Italy and Spain
a man's life is not respected, and the reason is plain. There we are
believed to have a soul in our own image, which survives us and lives
for ever. Tell that to your analyst! It is only among atheistical or
philosophical nations that those who mar human life are made to pay
so dearly; and with reason from their point of view--a belief only in
matter and in the present.

"If Calvi had told you who the woman was from whom he obtained the
stolen goods, you would not have found the real murderer; he is already
in your hands; but his accomplice, whom poor Theodore will not betray
because she is a woman----Well, every calling has its point of honor;
convicts and thieves have theirs!

"Now, I know the murderer of those two women and the inventors of that
bold, strange plot; I have been told every detail. Postpone Calvi's
execution, and you shall know all; but you must give me your word that
he shall be sent safe back to the hulks and his punishment commuted.
A man so miserable as I am does not take the trouble to lie--you know
that. What I have told you is the truth."

"To you, Jacques Collin, though it is degrading Justice, which ought
never to condescend to such a compromise, I believe I may relax the
rigidity of my office and refer the case to my superiors."

"Will you grant me this life?"

"Possibly."

"Monsieur, I implore you to give me your word; it will be enough."

Monsieur Granville drew himself up with offended pride.

"I hold in my hand the honor of thr