Not two yards from the little window, Goudar and Cocoleu were sitting on a wooden bench in the bright sunlight.

By long study and a great effort of will, Goudar had succeeded in giving to his face a most perfect expression of stupidity:  even the people belonging to the hospital thought he was more idiotic than the other.

He held in his hand his violin, which the doctor had ordered to be left to him; and he accompanied himself with a few notes, as he repeated the same familiar song which he had sung on the New-Market Square when he first accosted M. Folgat.

Cocoleu, a large piece of bread-and-butter in one hand, and a big clasp-knife in the other, was finishing his meal.

But this music delighted him so intensely, that he actually forgot to eat, and, with hanging lip and half-closed eyes, rocked himself to and fro, keeping time with the measure.

“They look hideous!” M. Folgat could not keep from whispering.  In the meantime Goudar, warned by the preconcerted signal, had finished his song.  He bent over, and drew from under the bench an enormous bottle, from which he seemed to draw a considerable quantity of something pleasant.

Then he passed it to Cocoleu, who likewise began to pull, eagerly and long, and with an expression of idiotic beatitude.  Then patting his stomach with his hands, he said,—­

“That’s—­that’s—­that’s—­good!”

M. Daubigeon whispered into Dr. Seignebos’s ear,—­

“Ah, I begin to see!  I notice from Cocoleu’s eyes, that this practice with the bottle must have been going on for some time already.  Cocoleu is drunk.”

Goudar again took up his violin and repeated his song.

“I—­I—­want—­want to—­to drink!” stammered Cocoleu.

Goudar kept him waiting a little while, and then handed him the bottle. 
The idiot threw back his head, and drank till he had lost his breath. 
Then Goudar asked,—­

“Ah! you did not have such good wine to drink at Valpinson?”

“Oh, yes!” replied Cocoleu.

“But as much as you wanted?”

“Yes.  Quite—­enough.”

And, laughing with some difficulty, he stammered, and stuttered out,—­

“I got—­got into the cellar through one of the windows; and I drank—­drank through—­through a—­a straw.”

“You must be sorry you are no longer there?”

“Oh, yes!”

“But, if you were so well off at Valpinson, why did you set it on fire?”

The witnesses of the strange scene crowded to the little window of the cell, and held their breath with eager expectation.

“I wanted to burn some fagots only, to make the count come out.  It was not my fault, if the whole house got on fire.”

“And why did you want to kill the count?”

“Because I wanted the great lady to marry M. de Boiscoran.”

“Ah!  She told you to do it, did she?”

“Oh, no!  But she cried so much; and then she told me she would be so happy if her husband were dead.  And she was always good to Cocoleu; and the count was always bad; and so I shot him.”