“Alas, I did not yet know it.  What was this man who lived at Valfeuillu to me?  But from the day that I learned that he was going to deprive me of my most precious treasure, I began to study him.  I should have been somewhat consoled if I had found him worthy of her; so I dogged him, as you, Monsieur Lecoq, cling to the criminal whom you are pursuing.  I went often to Paris to learn what I could of his past life; I became a detective, and went about questioning everybody who had known him, and the more I heard of him the more I despised him.  It was thus that I found out his interviews with Jenny and his relations with Bertha.”

“Why didn’t you divulge them?”

“Honor commanded silence.  Had I a right to dishonor my friend and ruin his happiness and life, because of this ridiculous, hopeless love?  I kept my own counsel after speaking to Courtois about Jenny, at which he only laughed.  When I hinted something against Hector to Laurence, she almost ceased coming to see me.”

“Ah!  I shouldn’t have had either your patience or your generosity.”

“Because you are not as old as I, Monsieur Lecoq.  Oh, I cruelly hated this Tremorel!  I said to myself, when I saw three women of such different characters smitten with him, ’what is there in him to be so loved?’”

“Yes,” answered M. Lecoq, responding to a secret thought, “women often err; they don’t judge men as we do.”

“Many a time,” resumed the justice of the peace, “I thought of provoking him to fight with me, that I might kill him; but then Laurence would not have looked at me any more.  However, I should perhaps have spoken at last, had not Sauvresy fallen ill and died.  I knew that he had made his wife and Tremorel swear to marry each other; I knew that a terrible reason forced them to keep their oath; and I thought Laurence saved.  Alas, on the contrary she was lost!  One evening, as I was passing the mayor’s house, I saw a man getting over the wall into the garden; it was Tremorel.  I recognized him perfectly.  I was beside myself with rage, and swore that I would wait and murder him.  I did wait, but he did not come out that night.”

M. Plantat hid his face in his bands; his heart bled at the recollection of that night of anguish, the whole of which he had passed in waiting for a man in order to kill him.  M. Lecoq trembled with indignation.

“This Tremorel,” cried he, “is the most abominable of scoundrels.  There is no excuse for his infamies and crimes.  And yet you want to save him from trial, the galleys, the scaffold which await him.”

The old man paused a moment before replying.  Of the thoughts which now crowded tumultuously in his mind, he did not know which to utter first.  Words seemed powerless to betray his sensations; he wanted to express all that he felt in a single sentence.

“What matters Tremorel to me?” said he at last.  “Do you think I care about him?  I don’t care whether he lives or dies, whether he succeeds in flying or ends his life some morning in the Place Roquette.”