The moment was decisive, the situation embarrassing.  Jansoulet did not hesitate.  It was one of the poor Nabob’s pretensions to know men as well as Mora.  And this instinct, which, said he, had never deceived him, warned him that he was at that moment dealing with a rigid and unshakable honesty, a conscience in hard stone, untouchable by pick-axe or powder.  “My conscience!” Suddenly he changed his programme, threw to the winds the tricks and equivocations which embarrassed his open and courageous disposition, and, head high and heart open, held to this honest man a language he was born to understand.

“Do not be astonished, my dear colleague,”—­his voice trembled, but soon became firm in the conviction of his defence—­“do not be astonished if I am come to find you here instead of asking simply to be heard by the third committee.  The explanation which I have to make to you is so delicate and confidential that it would have been impossible to make it publicly before my colleagues.”

Maitre Le Merquier, above his spectacles, looked at the curtain with a disturbed air.  Evidently the conversation was taking an unexpected turn.

“I do not enter on the main question,” said the Nabob.  “Your report, I am assured, is impartial and loyal, such as your conscience has dictated to you.  Only there are some heart-breaking calumnies spread about me to which I have not answered, and which have perhaps influenced the opinion of the committee.  It is on this subject that I wish to speak to you.  I know the confidence with which you are honoured by your colleagues, M. Le Merquier, and that, when I shall have convinced you, your word will be enough without forcing me to lay bare my distress to them all.  You know the accusation—­the most terrible, the most ignoble.  There are so many people who might be deceived by it.  My enemies have given names, dates, addresses.  Well, I bring you the proofs of my innocence.  I lay them bare before you—­you only—­for I have grave reasons for keeping the whole affair secret.”

Then he showed the lawyer a certificate from the Consulate of Tunis, that during twenty years he had only left the principality twice—­the first time to see his dying father at Bourg-Saint Andeol; the second, to make, with the Bey, a visit of three days to his chateau of Saint-Romans.

“How comes it, then, that with a document so conclusive in my hands I have not brought my accusers before the courts to contradict and confound them?  Alas, monsieur, there are cruel responsibilities in families.  I have a brother, a poor fellow, weak and spoiled, who has for long wallowed in the mud of Paris, who has left there his intelligence and his honour.  Has he descended to that degree of baseness which I, in his name, am accused of?  I have not dared to find out.  All I can say is, that my poor father, who knew more than any one in the family of it, whispered to me in dying, ’Bernard, it is your elder brother who has killed me.  I die of shame, my child.’”