The sailor shook his head, and heaved a deep sigh.

“Alas, sir! it was I who obeyed.”

To proceed by short inquiries with a witness, when you have no idea of the information he brings, is but to lose time in attempting to gain it.  When you think you are approaching the important fact, you may be just avoiding it.  It is much better to give the witness the rein, and to listen carefully, putting him back on the track should he get too far away.  It is the surest and easiest method.  This was the course M. Daburon adopted, all the time cursing Gevrol’s absence, as he by a single word could have shortened by a good half the examination, the importance of which, by the way, the magistrate did not even suspect.

“In what intrigues did your wife mingle?” asked he.  “Go on, my friend, tell me everything exactly; here, you know, we must have not only the truth, but the whole truth.”

Lerouge placed his hat on a chair.  Then he began alternately to pull his fingers, making them crack almost sufficiently to break them, and ultimately scratched his head violently.  It was his way of arranging his ideas.

“I must tell you,” he began, “that it will be thirty-five years on St. John’s day since I fell in love with Claudine.  She was a pretty, neat, fascinating girl, with a voice sweeter than honey.  She was the most beautiful girl in our part of the country, straight as a mast, supple as a willow, graceful and strong as a racing boat.  Her eyes sparkled like old cider; her hair was black, her teeth as white as pearls, and her breath was as fresh as the sea breeze.  The misfortune was, that she hadn’t a sou, while we were in easy circumstances.  Her mother, who was the widow of I can’t say how many husbands, was, saving your presence, a bad woman, and my father was the worthiest man alive.  When I spoke to the old fellow of marrying Claudine he swore fiercely, and eight days after, he sent me to Porto on a schooner belonging to one of our neighbours, just to give me a change of air.  I came back, at the end of six months, thinner than a marling spike, but more in love than ever.  Recollections of Claudine scorched me like a fire.  I could scarcely eat or drink; but I felt that she loved me a little in return, for I was a fine young fellow, and more than one girl had set her cap at me.  Then my father, seeing that he could do nothing, that I was wasting away, and was on the road to join my mother in the cemetery, decided to let me complete my folly.  So one evening, after we had returned from fishing and I got up from supper without tasting it, he said to me, ’Marry the hag’s daughter, and let’s have no more of this.’  I remember it distinctly, because, when I heard the old fellow call my love such a name, I flew into a great passion, and almost wanted to kill him.  Ah, one never gains anything by marrying in opposition to one’s parents!”

The worthy fellow was lost in the midst of his recollections.  He was very far from his story.  The investigating magistrate attempted to bring him back into the right path, “Come to the point,” he said.