“Ah, now we are safe!” cried Dr. Seignebos.

M. Folgat was pale with excitement.  Still he proposed,—­

“Let us tell the marquis and Miss Dionysia what is going on before we leave the house.”

“No,” said the doctor, “no!  Let us wait till every thing is quite safe.  Let us go quick; let us go at once.”

They were right to make haste.  The magistrate and the commonwealth attorney were waiting for them with the greatest impatience.  As soon as they came into the small room of the clerk’s office, M. Daubigeon cried,—­

“Well, I suppose Mechinet has told you all?”

“Yes,” replied M. Folgat; “but we have some information of which you have heard as yet nothing.”

Then he told them that Suky Wood had arrived, and what she had given in as evidence.

M. Galpin had sunk into a chair, completely crushed by the weight of so many proofs of his misapprehension of the case.  There he sat without saying a word, without moving a muscle.  But M. Daubigeon was radiant.

“Most assuredly,” he cried, “Jacques must be innocent!”

“Most assuredly he is innocent!” said Dr. Seignebos; “and the proof of it is, that I know who is guilty.”

“Oh!”

“And you will know too, if you will take the trouble of following me, with M. Galpin, to the hospital.”

It was just striking one; and not one of them all had eaten any thing that morning.  But they had no time to think of breakfast.

Without a shadow of hesitation, M. Daubigeon turned to M. Galpin, and said,—­

“Will you come, Galpin?”

The poor magistrate rose mechanically, after the manner of an automaton, and they went out, creating no small sensation among the good people of Sauveterre, when they appeared thus all in a group.

M. Daubigeon spoke first to the lady superior of the hospital; and, when he had explained to her what their purpose was in coming there, she raised her eyes heavenward, and said with a sigh of resignation,—­

“Well, gentlemen, do as you like, and I hope you will be successful; for it is a sore trial for us poor sisters to have these continual visitations in the name of the law.”

“Please follow me, then, to the Insane Ward, gentlemen,” said the doctor.

They call the Insane Ward at the Sauveterre hospital a small, low building, with a sanded court in front, and a tall wall around the whole.  The building is divided into six cells, each of which has two doors,—­one opening into the court, and the other an outside door for the assistants and servants.

It was to one of these latter doors that Dr. Seignebos led his friends.  And after having recommended to them the most perfect silence, so as not to rouse Cocoleu’s suspicions, he invited them into one of the cells, in which the door leading into the court had been closed.  There was, however, a little grated window in the upper part of the door, so that they could, without being seen, both see and hear all that was said and done in the court reserved for the use of the insane.