“Explain yourself, madame,” said Sauvager. “you speak as if we had not done our duty.”

“Mme. Camusot meant nothing,” interposed her husband.

“But has not M. le President just said something prejudicing a case which depends on the examination of the prisoner?” said she.  “And the evidence is still to be taken, and the Court had not given its decision?”

“We are not at the law-courts,” the deputy public prosecutor replied tartly; “and besides, we know all that.”

“But the public prosecutor knows nothing at all about it yet,” returned she, with an ironical glance.  “He will come back from the Chamber of Deputies in all haste.  You have cut out his work for him, and he, no doubt, will speak for himself.”

The deputy prosecutor knitted his thick bushy brows.  Those interested read tardy scruples in his countenance.  A great silence followed, broken by no sound but the dealing of the cards.  M. and Mme. Camusot, sensible of a decided chill in the atmosphere, took their departure to leave the conspirators to talk at their ease.

“Camusot,” the lady began in the street, “you went too far.  Why lead those people to suspect that you will have no part in their schemes?  They will play you some ugly trick.”

“What can they do?  I am the only examining magistrate.”

“Cannot they slander you in whispers, and procure your dismissal?”

At that very moment Chesnel ran up against the couple.  The old notary recognized the examining magistrate; and with the lucidity which comes of an experience of business, he saw that the fate of the d’Esgrignons lay in the hands of the young man before him.

“Ah, sir!” he exclaimed, “we shall soon need you badly.  Just a word with you.—­Your pardon, madame,” he added, as he drew Camusot aside.

Mme. Camusot, as a good conspirator, looked towards du Croisier’s house, ready to break up the conversation if anybody appeared; but she thought, and thought rightly, that their enemies were busy discussing this unexpected turn which she had given to the affair.  Chesnel meanwhile drew the magistrate into a dark corner under the wall, and lowered his voice for his companion’s ear.

“If you are for the house of d’Esgrignon,” he said, “Mme. la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, the Prince of Cadignan, the Ducs de Navarreins and de Lenoncourt, the Keeper of the Seals, the Chancellor, the King himself, will interest themselves in you.  I have just come from Paris; I knew all about this; I went post-haste to explain everything at Court.  We are counting on you, and I will keep your secret.  If you are hostile, I shall go back to Paris to-morrow and lodge a complaint with the Keeper of the Seals that there is a suspicion of corruption.  Several functionaries were at du Croisier’s house to-night, and no doubt, ate and drank there, contrary to law; and besides, they are friends of his.”