The magistrates approved the request of the merciful physician, and Felicie was permitted to attend her mistress.  The judge and the prosecutor talked together in a low voice.  Officers of the law are very unfortunate in being forced to suspect all, and to imagine evil everywhere.  By dint of supposing wicked intentions, and of comprehending them, in order to reach the truth hidden under so many contradictory actions, it is impossible that the exercise of their dreadful functions should not, in the long run, dry up at their source the generous emotions they are constrained to repress.  If the sensibilities of the surgeon who probes into the mysteries of the human body end by growing callous, what becomes of those of the judge who is incessantly compelled to search the inner folds of the soul?  Martyrs to their mission, magistrates are all their lives in mourning for their lost illusions; crime weighs no less heavily on them than on the criminal.  An old man seated on the bench is venerable, but a young judge makes a thoughtful person shudder.  The examining judge in this case was young, and he felt obliged to say to the public prosecutor,—­

“Do you think that woman was her husband’s accomplice?  Ought we to take her into custody?  Is it best to question her?”

The prosecutor replied, with a careless shrug of his shoulders,—­

“Montefiore and Diard were two well-known scoundrels.  The maid evidently knew nothing of the crime.  Better let the thing rest there.”

The doctor performed the autopsy, and dictated his report to the sheriff.  Suddenly he stopped, and hastily entered the next room.

“Madame—­” he said.

Juana, who had removed her bloody gown, came towards him.

“It was you,” he whispered, stooping to her ear, “who killed your husband.”

“Yes, monsieur,” she replied.

The doctor returned and continued his dictation as follows,—­

“And, from the above assemblage of facts, it appears evident that the said Diard killed himself voluntarily and by his own hand.”

“Have you finished?” he said to the sheriff after a pause.

“Yes,” replied the writer.

The doctor signed the report.  Juana, who had followed him into the room, gave him one glance, repressing with difficulty the tears which for an instant rose into her eyes and moistened them.

“Messieurs,” she said to the public prosecutor and the judge, “I am a stranger here, and a Spaniard.  I am ignorant of the laws, and I know no one in Bordeaux.  I ask of you one kindness:  enable me to obtain a passport for Spain.”

“One moment!” cried the examining judge.  “Madame, what has become of the money stolen from the Marquis de Montefiore?”

“Monsieur Diard,” she replied, “said something to me vaguely about a heap of stones, under which he must have hidden it.”

“Where?”

“In the street.”

The two magistrates looked at each other.  Juana made a noble gesture and motioned to the doctor.