he room near the library door.

"There is an experiment which must be tried, Monsieur, and it ought to
tempt a man like you," he said.

Bernardet knew very well that, painstaking even to a fault, taken with
any new scientific discoveries, with a receptive mind, eager to study
and to learn, M. Ginory would not refuse him any help which would aid
justice. Had not the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences crowned,
the year before, M. Ginory's book on "The Duties of a Magistrate to the
Discoveries of Science?"

The word "experiment" was not said in order to frighten M. Ginory.

"What do you mean by that, Bernardet?" the Magistrate asked. Bernardet
shook his head as if to intimate that the explanation was too long to
give him there. They were not alone. Some one might hear them. And if a
journal should publish the strange proposition which he wished to----

"Ah! Ah!" exclaimed the Examining Magistrate, "then it is something
strange, your experiment?"

"Any Magistrate but you would think it wild, unreasonable, or
ridiculous, which is worse. But you--oh! I do not say it to flatter you,
Monsieur," quickly added the police officer, seeing that the praise
troubled this man, who always shrank from it. "I speak thus because it
is the very truth, and any one else would treat me as crack-brained. But
you--no!"

M. Ginory looked curiously at the little man, whose attitude was humble
and even supplicating, and seemed to seek a favorable response, and
whose eyes sparkled and indicated that his idea was no common one.

"What is that room there?" asked M. Ginory, pointing to the half-open
library door.

"It is the study of M. Rovere--the victim"----

"Let us go in there," said M. Ginory.

In this room no one could hear them; they could speak freely. On
entering, the Examining Magistrate mechanically cast his eye over the
books, stopping at such and such a title of a rare work, and, seating
himself in a low, easy chair, covered with Caramanie, he made a sign to
the police officer to speak. Bernardet stood, hat in hand, in front of
him.

"M. le Juge," Bernardet began, "I beg your pardon for asking you to
grant me an interview. But, allowing for the difference in our
positions, which is very great, I am, like you, a scholar; very curious.
I shall never belong to the Institute, and you will"----

"Go on, Bernardet."

"And you will belong to it, M. Ginory, but I strive also, in my lower
sphere, to keep myself _au courant_ w