plice," said he, watching to see the effect of this news on his
examinee.

"You have brought about a great misfortune, for he is as innocent as
I am," replied the sham Spaniard, without betraying the smallest
agitation.

"We shall see. We have not as yet established your identity," Camusot
observed, surprised at the prisoner's indifference. "If you are really
Don Carlos Herrera, the position of Lucien Chardon will at once be
completely altered."

"To be sure, she became Madame Chardon--Mademoiselle de Rubempre!"
murmured Carlos. "Ah! that was one of the greatest sins of my life."

He raised his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of his lips seemed to
be uttering a fervent prayer.

"But if you are Jacques Collin, and if he was, and knew that he was, the
companion of an escaped convict, a sacrilegious wretch, all the crimes
of which he is suspected by the law are more than probably true."

Carlos Herrera sat like bronze as he heard this speech, very cleverly
delivered by the judge, and his only reply to the words "_knew that he
was_" and "_escaped convict_" was to lift his hands to heaven with a
gesture of noble and dignified sorrow.

"Monsieur l'Abbe," Camusot went on, with the greatest politeness, "if
you are Don Carlos Herrera, you will forgive us for what we are obliged
to do in the interests of justice and truth."

Jacques Collin detected a snare in the lawyer's very voice as he spoke
the words "Monsieur l'Abbe." The man's face never changed; Camusot had
looked for a gleam of joy, which might have been the first indication of
his being a convict, betraying the exquisite satisfaction of a
criminal deceiving his judge; but this hero of the hulks was strong in
Machiavellian dissimulation.

"I am accustomed to diplomacy, and I belong to an Order of very austere
discipline," replied Jacques Collin, with apostolic mildness. "I
understand everything, and am inured to suffering. I should be free by
this time if you had discovered in my room the hiding-place where I keep
my papers--for I see you have none but unimportant documents."

This was a finishing stroke to Camusot: Jacques Collin by his air of
ease and simplicity had counteracted all the suspicions to which his
appearance, unwigged, had given rise.

"Where are these papers?"

"I will tell you exactly if you will get a secretary from the Spanish
Embassy to accompany your messenger. He will take them and be answerable
to you for the documents, for it is