t was all
over!----"

"But you must have lost your head!" said Amelie. "What was to prevent
you, being so sure as you are of your clerk's fidelity, from calling
Lucien back, reassuring him cleverly, and revising the examination?"

"Why, you are as bad as Madame de Serizy; you laugh justice to scorn,"
said Camusot, who was incapable of flouting his profession. "Madame de
Serizy seized the minutes and threw them into the fire."

"That is the right sort of woman! Bravo!" cried Madame Camusot.

"Madame de Serizy declared she would sooner see the Palais blown up
than leave a young man who had enjoyed the favors of the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse and her own to stand at the bar of a Criminal court by the
side of a convict!"

"But, Camusot," said Amelie, unable to suppress a superior smile, "your
position is splendid----"

"Ah! yes, splendid!"

"You did your duty."

"But all wrong; and in spite of the jesuitical advice of Monsieur de
Granville, who met me on the Quai Malaquais."

"This morning!"

"This morning."

"At what hour?"

"At nine o'clock."

"Oh, Camusot!" cried Amelie, clasping and wringing her hands, "and I am
always imploring you to be constantly on the alert.--Good heavens! it
is not a man, but a barrow-load of stones that I have to drag on!--Why,
Camusot, your public prosecutor was waiting for you.--He must have given
you some warning."

"Yes, indeed----"

"And you failed to understand him! If you are so deaf, you will indeed
be an examining judge all your life without any knowledge whatever of
the question.--At any rate, have sense enough to listen to me," she went
on, silencing her husband, who was about to speak. "You think the matter
is done for?" she asked.

Camusot looked at his wife as a country bumpkin looks at a conjurer.

"If the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Madame de Serizy are compromised,
you will find them both ready to patronize you," said Amelie. "Madame de
Serizy will get you admission to the Keeper of the Seals, and you will
tell him the secret history of the affair; then he will amuse the King
with the story, for sovereigns always wish to see the wrong side of the
tapestry and to know the real meaning of the events the public stare
at open-mouthed. Henceforth there will be no cause to fear either the
public prosecutor or Monsieur de Serizy."

"What a treasure such a wife is!" cried the lawyer, plucking up courage.
"After all, I have unearthed Jacques Collin; I shall send hi