“You do know!” cried the American.  “You know I had given you my life in sacred pledge, and you made a plaything of it.  You told me you were unhappy, married to a man you loathed, a dull brute; but when I offered you freedom and my love, you drew back.  When I begged you to leave him and become my wife, with the law’s sanction, you said no, because I was poor and he was rich.  You wanted a lover, but you wanted your luxury, too; and I saw that what I had thought the call of your soul was only the call of your body.  Your beauty had blinded me, your eyes, your mouth, your voice, the smell of you, the taste of you, the devilish siren power of you, all these had blinded me.  I saw that your talk about love was a lie.  Love!  What did you know about love?  You wanted me, along with your ease and your pleasures, as a coarse creator of sensations, and you couldn’t have me on those terms.  In my madness I would have done anything for you, borne anything; I would have starved for you, toiled for you, yes, gladly; but you didn’t want that kind of sacrifice.  You couldn’t see why I worried about money.  There was plenty for us both where yours came from.  God!  Where yours came from!  Why couldn’t I leave well enough alone and enjoy an easy life in Paris, with a nicely furnished rez de chaussee off the Champs Elysees, where madam could drive up in her carriage after luncheon and break the Seventh Commandment comfortably three of four afternoons a week, and be home in time to dress for dinner!  That was what you wanted,” he paused and searched deep into her eyes as she cowered before him, “but that was what you couldn’t have!”

“On the whole, I think he’s guilty,” concluded the judge an hour later, speaking to Coquenil, who had been looking over the secretary’s record of the examination.

“Queer!” muttered the detective.  “He says he had three pairs of boots.”

“He talks too much,” continued Hauteville; “his whole plea was ranting.  It’s a crime passionel, if ever there was one, and—­I shall commit him for trial.”

Coquenil was not listening; he had drawn two squares of shiny paper from his pocket, and was studying them with a magnifying glass.  The judge looked at him in surprise.

“Do you hear what I say?” he repeated.  “I shall commit him for trial.”

M. Paul glanced up with an absent expression.  “It’s circumstantial evidence,” was all he said, and he went back to his glass.

“Yes, but a strong chain of it.”

“A strong chain,” mused the other, then suddenly his face lighted and he sprang to his feet.  “Great God of Heaven!” he cried in excitement, and hurrying to the window he stood there in the full light, his eye glued to the magnifying glass, his whole soul concentrated on those two pieces of paper, evidently photographs.

“What is it?  What have you found?” asked the judge.

“I have found a weak link that breaks your whole chain,” triumphed M. Paul.  “The alleyway footprints are not identical with the soles of Kittredge’s boots.”