“Do not blame M. de Boiscoran, sir, now that every thing is against him!  Of all of us, he suffers, after all, most; for he is innocent.”

“Do you still think so?”

“More than ever.  Little as he has said, he has told Miss Dionysia enough to confirm me in my conjecture, and to prove to me that I have guessed right.”

“When?”

“The day we went to Boiscoran.”

The baron tried to remember.

“I do not recollect,” he said.

“Don’t you remember,” said the lawyer, “that you left us, so as to permit Anthony to answer my questions more freely?”

“To be sure!” cried M. de Chandore, “to be sure!  And then you thought”—­

“I thought I had guessed right, yes, sir; but I am not going to do any thing now.  M. de Boiscoran tells us that the facts are improbable.  I should, therefore, in all probability, soon be astray; but, since we are now bound to be passive till the investigation is completed, I shall employ the time in examining the country people, who will, probably, tell me more than Anthony did.  You have, no doubt, among your friends, some who must be well informed,—­M.  Seneschal, Dr. Seignebos.”

The latter did not keep M. Folgat waiting long; for his name had hardly been mentioned, when he himself repeated it in the passage, telling a servant,—­

“Say it is I, Dr. Seignebos, Dr. Seignebos.”

He fell like a bombshell into the room.  It was four days now since he had last presented himself there; for he had not come himself for his report and the shot he had left in M. Folgat’s hands.  He had sent for them, excusing himself on the score of his many engagements.  The fact was, however, that he had spent nearly the whole of these four days at the hospital, in company with one of his brother-practitioners, who had been sent for by the court to proceed, “jointly with Dr. Seignebos,” to an examination of Cocoleu’s mental condition.

“And this is what brings me here,” he cried, still in the door; “for this opinion, if it is not put into proper order, will deprive M. de Boiscoran of his best and surest chance of escape.”

After what Dionysia had told them, neither M. de Chandore nor M. Folgat attached much importance to the state of Cocoleu’s mind:  still this word “escape” attracted their attention.  There is nothing unimportant in a criminal trial.

“Is there any thing new?” asked the advocate.

The doctor first went to close the doors carefully, and then, putting his cane and broad-brimmed hat upon the table, he said,—­

“No, there is nothing new.  They still insist, as before, upon ruining M. de Boiscoran; and, in order to do that, they shrink from nothing.”

“They!  Who are they?” asked M. de Chandore.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

“Are you really in doubt, sir?” he replied.  “And yet the facts speak clearly enough.  In this department, there is a certain number of physicians who are not very keenly alive to the honor of their profession, and who are, to tell the truth, consummate apes.”