“They must have killed the senator and plastered the body up in some wall,” said Pigoult.

“I begin to fear it,” answered Lechesneau.  “Where did you carry that plaster?” he said to Gothard.

The boy began to cry.

“The law frightens him,” said Michu, whose eyes were darting flames like those of a lion in the toils.

The servants, who had been detained at the village by order of the mayor, now arrived and filled the antechamber where Catherine and Gothard were weeping.  To all the questions of the director of the jury and the justice of peace Gothard replied by sobs; and by dint of weeping he brought on a species of convulsion which alarmed them so much that they let him alone.  The little scamp, perceiving that he was no longer watched, looked at Michu with a grin, and Michu signified his approval by a glance.  Lechesneau left the justice of peace and returned to the stables.

“Monsieur,” said Madame d’Hauteserre, at last, addressing Pigoult; “can you explain these arrests?”

“The gentlemen are accused of abducting the senator by armed force and keeping him a prisoner; for we do not think they have murdered him—­in spite of appearances,” replied Pigoult.

“What penalties are attached to the crime?” asked Monsieur d’Hauteserre.

“Well, as the old law continues in force, and they are not amenable under the Code, the penalty is death,” replied the justice.

“Death!” cried Madame d’Hauteserre, fainting away.

The abbe now came in with his sister, who stopped to speak to Catherine and Madame Durieu.

“We haven’t even seen your cursed senator!” said Michu.

“Madame Marion, Madame Grevin, Monsieur Grevin, the senator’s valet, and Violette all tell another tale,” replied Pigoult, with the sour smile of magisterial conviction.

“I don’t understand a thing about it,” said Michu, dumbfounded by his reply, and beginning now to believe that his masters and himself were entangled in some plot which had been laid against them.

Just then the party from the stables returned.  Laurence went up to Madame d’Hauteserre, who recovered her senses enough to say:  “The penalty is death!”

“Death!” repeated Laurence, looking at the four gentlemen.

The word excited a general terror, of which Giguet, formerly instructed by Corentin, took immediate advantage.

“Everything can be arranged,” he said, drawing the Marquis de Simeuse into a corner of the dining-room.  “Perhaps after all it is nothing but a joke; you’ve been a soldier and soldiers understand each other.  Tell me, what have you really done with the senator?  If you have killed him —­why, that’s the end of it!  But if you have only locked him up, release him, for you see for yourself your game is balked.  Do this and I am certain the director of the jury and the senator himself will drop the matter.”

“We know absolutely nothing about it,” said the marquis.