“Yes, my sister; why?”

“Because you cannot see him.”

“I cannot?”

“No.  The commonwealth attorney has sent us orders not to let any one, except the sister who nurses him, come near Cocoleu,—­no one, doctor, not even the physician, a case of urgency, of course, excepted.”

Dr. Seignebos smiled ironically.  Then he said, laughing scornfully,—­

“Ah, these are your orders, are they?  Well, I tell you that I do not mind them in the least.  Who can prevent me from seeing my patient?  Tell me that!  Let the commonwealth attorney give his orders in his court-house as much as he chooses:  that is all right.  But in my hospital!  My sister, I am going to Cocoleu’s room.”

“Doctor, you cannot go there.  There is a gendarme at the door.”

“A gendarme?”

“Yes, he came this morning with the strictest orders.”

For a moment the doctor was overcome.  Then he suddenly broke out with unusual violence, and a voice that made the windows shake,—­

“This is unheard of!  This is an abominable abuse of power!  I’ll have my rights, and justice shall be done me, if I have to go to Thiers!”

Then he rushed out without ceremony, crossed the yard, and disappeared like an arrow, in the direction of the court-house.  At that very moment M. Daubigeon was getting up, feeling badly because he had had a bad, sleepless night, thanks to this unfortunate affair of M. de Boiscoran, which troubled him sorely; for he was almost of M. Galpin’s opinion.  In vain he recalled Jacques’s noble character, his well-known uprightness, his keen sense of honor, the evidence was so strong, so overwhelming!  He wanted to doubt; but experience told him that a man’s past is no guarantee for his future.  And, besides, like many great criminal lawyers, he thought, what he would never have ventured to say openly, that some great criminals act while they are under the influence of a kind of vertigo, and that this explains the stupidity of certain crimes committed by men of superior intelligence.

Since his return from Boiscoran, he had kept close in his house; and he had just made up his mind not to leave the house that day, when some one rang his bell furiously.  A moment later Dr. Seignebos fell into the room like a bombshell.

“I know what brings you, doctor,” said M. Daubigeon.  “You come about that order I have given concerning Cocoleu.”

“Yes, indeed, sir!  That order is an insult.”

“I have been asked to give it as a matter of necessity, by M. Galpin.”

“And why did you not refuse?  You alone are responsible for it in my eyes.  You are commonwealth attorney, consequently the head of the bar, and superior to M. Galpin.”

M. Daubigeon shook his head and said,—­

“There you are mistaken, doctor.  The magistrate in such a case is independent of myself and of the court.  He is not even bound to obey the attorney-general, who can make suggestions to him, but cannot give him orders.  M. Galpin, in his capacity as examining magistrate, has his independent jurisdiction, and is armed with almost unlimited power.  No one in the world can say so well as an examining magistrate what the poet calls,—­