The trusty old servant’s face brightened up, and he exclaimed,—­

“Ah!  If the gentleman is a lawyer.  Welcome, sir.  Now I can say all that weighs on my heart.  No, most assuredly I do not think Master Jacques guilty.  It is impossible he should be so:  it is absurd to think of it.  But what I believe, what I am sure of, is this,—­there is a plot to charge him with all the horrors of Valpinson.”

“A plot?” broke in M. Folgat, “whose? how? and what for?”

“Ah! that is more than I know.  But I am not mistaken; and you would think so too, if you had been present at the examination, as I was.  It was fearful, gentlemen, it was unbearable, so that even I was stupefied for a moment, and thought my master was guilty, and advised him to flee.  The like has never been heard of before, I am sure.  Every thing went against him.  Every answer he made sounded like a confession.  A crime had been committed at Valpinson; he had been seen going there and coming back by side paths.  A fire had been kindled; his hands bore traces of charcoal.  Shots had been fired; they found one of his cartridge-cases close to the spot where Count Claudieuse had been wounded.  There it was I saw the plot.  How could all these circumstances have agreed so precisely if they had not been pre-arranged, and calculated beforehand?  Our poor M. Daubigeon had tears in his eyes; and even that meddlesome fellow, Mechinet, the clerk, was quite overcome.  M. Galpin was the only one who looked pleased; but then he was the magistrate, and he put the questions.  He, my master’s friend!—­a man who was constantly coming here, who ate our bread, slept in our beds, and shot our game.  Then it was, ‘My dear Jacques,’ and ‘My dear Boiscoran’ always, and no end of compliments and caresses; so that I often thought one of these days I should find him blackening my master’s boots.  Ah! he took his revenge yesterday; and you ought to have seen with what an air he said to master, ‘We are friends no longer.’  The rascal!  No, we are friends no longer; and, if God was just, you ought to have all the shot in your body that has wounded Count Claudieuse.”

M. de Chandore was growing more and more impatient.  As soon, therefore, as Anthony’s breath gave out a moment, he said,—­

“Why did you not come and tell me all that immediately?”

The old servant ventured to shrug his shoulders slightly, and replied,—­

“How could I?  When the examination was over, that man, Galpin, put the seals everywhere,—­strips of linen, fastened on with sealing-wax, as they do with dead people.  He put one on every opening, and on some of them two.  He put three on the outer door.  Then he told me that he appointed me keeper of the house, that I would be paid for it, but that I would be sent to the galleys if any one touched the seals with the tip of the finger.  When he had handed master over to the gendarmes, that man, Galpin, went away, leaving me here alone, dumfounded, like a man who has been knocked in the head.  Nevertheless, I should have come to you, sir, but I had an idea, and that gave me the shivers.”