him when to-morrow came.
To-morrow has come, and I am ready to tell you."

He waited a little, and lowered his voice to a whisper when he spoke
again.

"When Monsieur Chaubard was at our supper-table last night," he said,
"I had it in my mind that something had happened to our father, and
that the priest knew it."

The two elder brothers looked at him in speechless astonishment.

"Our father has been brought back to us a murdered man!" Jean went on,
still in a whisper. "I tell you, Louis--and you, Thomas--that the
priest knows who murdered him."

Louis and Thomas shrank from their younger brother as if he had spoken
blasphemy.

"Listen," said Jean. "No clue has been found to the secret of the
murder. The magistrate has promised us to do his best; but I saw in
his face that he had little hope. We must make the discovery
ourselves, or our father's blood will have cried to us for vengeance,
and cried in vain. Remember that, and mark my next words. You heard
me say yesterday evening that I had met Monsieur Chaubard on his way to
Toulouse, in excellent health and spirits. You heard our old friend
and neighbor contradict me at the supper-table, and declare that he had
seen the priest, some hours later, go into our church here with the
face of a panic-stricken man. You saw, Thomas, how he behaved when you
went to fetch him to our house. You saw, Louis, what his looks were
like when he came in. The change was noticed by every body--what was
the cause of it? I saw the cause in the priest's own face when our
father's name turned up in the talk round the supper-table. Did
Monsieur Chaubard join in that talk? He was the only person present
who never joined in it once. Did he change it on a sudden whenever it
came his way? It came his way four times; and four times he changed
it--trembling, stammering, turning whiter and whiter, but still, as
true as the heaven above us, shifting the talk off himself every time!
Are you men? Have you brains in your heads? Don't you see, as I see,
what this leads to? On my salvation I swear it--the priest knows the
hand that killed our father!"

The faces of the two elder brothers darkened vindictively, as the
conviction of the truth fastened itself on their minds.

"How could he know it?" they inquired, eagerly.

"He must tell us himself," said Jean.

"And if he hesitates--if he refuses to open his lips?"

"We must open them by main force."

They drew their chairs t