al. In such a frame of mind, a glance, a word, a tone of voice,
the slightest hesitation is enough to certify the hidden fact--treason
or crime.

"The style in which he depicted his devotion to his son--if he is his
son--is enough to make me think that he was in the girl's house to keep
an eye on the plunder; and never suspecting that the dead woman's pillow
covered a will, he no doubt annexed, for his son, the seven hundred and
fifty thousand francs as a precaution. That is why he can promise to
recover the money.

"M. de Rubempre owes it to himself and to justice to account for his
father's position in the world----

"And he offers me the protection of his Order--His Order!--if I do not
examine Lucien----"

As has been seen, a magistrate conducts an examination exactly as he
thinks proper. He is at liberty to display his acumen or be absolutely
blunt. An examination may be everything or nothing. Therein lies the
favor.

Camusot rang. The usher had returned. He was sent to fetch Monsieur
Lucien de Rubempre with an injunction to prohibit his speaking to
anybody on his way up. It was by this time two in the afternoon.

"There is some secret," said the judge to himself, "and that secret must
be very important. My amphibious friend--since he is neither priest,
nor secular, nor convict, nor Spaniard, though he wants to hinder his
protege from letting out something dreadful--argues thus: 'The poet is
weak and effeminate; he is not like me, a Hercules in diplomacy, and you
will easily wring our secret from him.'--Well, we will get everything
out of this innocent."

And he sat tapping the edge of his table with the ivory paper-knife,
while Coquart copied Esther's letter.

How whimsical is the action of our faculties! Camusot conceived of every
crime as possible, and overlooked the only one that the prisoner had
now committed--the forgery of the will for Lucien's advantage. Let those
whose envy vents itself on magistrates think for a moment of their life
spent in perpetual suspicion, of the torments these men must inflict
on their minds, for civil cases are not less tortuous than criminal
examinations, and it will occur to them perhaps that the priest and the
lawyer wear an equally heavy coat of mail, equally furnished with spikes
in the lining. However, every profession has its hair shirt and its
Chinese puzzles.

It was about two o'clock when Monsieur Camusot saw Lucien de Rubempre
come in, pale, worn, his eye