ft him. He had stretched
himself out and covered himself up. He closed his eyes and said:

"'It is so good to sleep!'

"I would see him to-morrow. I would try to again to-morrow awaken in him
the desire which now seemed dulled. To-morrow his memory would have
returned, and in some of his books where he had (like the Arabs who put
their harvests in silos) placed his treasure he would find the fortune
intended for his daughter.

"To-morrow! It is the word one repeats most often, and which one has the
least right to use.

"I saw Rovere only after he was dead, with his throat cut--assassinated
by whom? The man whom you have arrested has traveled much; he comes from
a distance. Rovere was Consul at Buenos Ayres, and you know that he said
to me the last day I saw him: 'I have known many rascals in my life!'
Which seemed very simple when one thinks of the way he had lived.

"This is the truth, Monsieur. I ought to have told you sooner. I repeat
that I had the weakness of wishing to keep the vow given to my dead
friend. I had the name of a woman to betray, the name of a man, too;
innocent of Rovere's fault. And then, again, it seemed to me that this
truth ought to become known of itself. When I was arrested, a sort of
foolish bravado urged me to see how far the absurdity of the charge
could accumulate against me seeming proofs. I am a gambler. That was a
part I played against you, or rather against the foolishness of destiny.
I did not take a second thought that the error could be a lasting one. I
had, moreover, only a word to say, but this word, I repeat, I hesitated
to speak, and I willingly supported the consequence of this hesitation,
even because this word was a name."

"That name," said M. Ginory, "I have not asked you."

"I refused it to the Magistrate," said Jacques Dantin, "but I confide it
to the man of honor!"

"There is only a Magistrate here," M. Ginory replied, "but the legal
inquiry has its secrets, as life has."

And Jacques Dantin gave the name which the one whom Louis-Pierre Rovere
called, Marthe, bore as her rightful name.

CHAPTER XVI.

M. GINORY, M. Leriche, the chief; Bernardet, and, in fact, all the
judiciary, believed that Charles Prades was guilty of the murder of
Rovere. Bernardet, who had been an actor in this drama, had now become a
spectator.

Paul Rodier, a good reporter, had learned before his confreres of the
arrest of the young man, and, aband