“I feel scarcely master of myself, sir,” began Noel; “so pray pardon my emotion.  If any words escape me that seem charged with bitterness, excuse them; they will be involuntary.  Up to the past few days, I always believed that I was the offspring of illicit love.  My history is short.  I have been honourably ambitious; I have worked hard.  He who has no name must make one, you know.  I have passed a quiet life, retired and austere, as people must, who, starting at the foot of the ladder, wish to reach the top.  I worshipped her whom I believed to be my mother; and I felt convinced that she loved me in return.  The stain of my birth had some humiliations attached to it; but I despised them.  Comparing my lot with that of so many others, I felt that I had more than common advantages.  One day, Providence placed in my hands all the letters which my father, the Count de Commarin, had written to Madame Gerdy during the time she was his mistress.  On reading these letters, I was convinced that I was not what I had hitherto believed myself to be,—­that Madame Gerdy was not my mother!”

And, without giving M. Daburon time to reply, he laid before him the facts which, twelve hours before, he had related to M. Tabaret.  It was the same story, with the same circumstances, the same abundance of precise and conclusive details; but the tone in which it was told was entirely changed.  When speaking to the old detective, the young advocate had been emphatic and violent; but now, in the presence of the investigating magistrate, he restrained his vehement emotions.

One might imagine that he adapted his style to his auditors, wishing to produce the same effect on both, and using the method which would best accomplish his purpose.

To an ordinary mind like M. Tabaret’s he used the exaggeration of anger; but to a man of superior intelligence like M. Daburon, he employed the exaggeration of restraint.  With the detective he had rebelled against his unjust lot; but with the magistrate he seemed to bow, full of resignation, before a blind fatality.

With genuine eloquence and rare facility of expression, he related his feelings on the day following the discovery,—­his grief, his perplexity, his doubts.

To support this moral certainty, some positive testimony was needed.  Could he hope for this from the count or from Madame Gerdy, both interested in concealing the truth?  No.  But he had counted upon that of his nurse,—­the poor old woman who loved him, and who, near the close of her life, would be glad to free her conscience from this heavy load.  She was dead now; and the letters became mere waste paper in his hands.

Then he passed on to his explanation with Madame Gerdy, and he gave the magistrate even fuller details than he had given his old neighbour.

She had, he said, at first utterly denied the substitution, but he insinuated that, plied with questions, and overcome by the evidence, she had, in a moment of despair, confessed all, declaring, soon after, that she would retract and deny this confession, being resolved at all hazards that her son should preserve his position.