During some minutes, he assisted at the representation of his own life.  At once actor and spectator, he was there seated in his arm-chair, and at the same time he appeared on the stage.  He acted, and he judged himself.

His first thought, it must be confessed, was one of hate, followed by a detestable feeling of satisfaction.  Chance had, so to say, delivered into his hands this man preferred by Claire, this man, now no longer a haughty nobleman, illustrious by his fortune and his ancestors, but the illegitimate offspring of a courtesan.  To retain a stolen name, he had committed a most cowardly assassination.  And he, the magistrate, was about to experience the infinite gratification of striking his enemy with the sword of justice.

But this was only a passing thought.  The man’s upright conscience revolted against it, and made its powerful voice heard.

“Is anything,” it cried, “more monstrous than the association of these two ideas,—­hatred and justice?  Can a magistrate, without despising himself more than he despises the vile beings he condemns, recollect that a criminal, whose fate is in his hands, has been his enemy?  Has an investigating magistrate the right to make use of his exceptional powers in dealing with a prisoner; so long as he harbours the least resentment against him?”

M. Daburon repeated to himself what he had so frequently thought during the year, when commencing a fresh investigation:  “And I also, I almost stained myself with a vile murder!”

And now it was his duty to cause to be arrested, to interrogate, and hand over to the assizes the man he had once resolved to kill.

All the world, it is true, ignored this crime of thought and intention; but could he himself forget it?  Was not this, of all others, a case in which he should decline to be mixed up?  Ought he not to withdraw, and wash his hands of the blood that had been shed, leaving to another the task of avenging him in the name of society?

“No,” said he, “it would be a cowardice unworthy of me.”

A project of mad generosity occurred to the bewildered man.  “If I save him,” murmured he, “if for Claire’s sake I leave him his honour and his life.  But how can I save him?  To do so I shall be obliged to suppress old Tabaret’s discoveries, and make an accomplice of him by ensuring his silence.  We shall have to follow a wrong track, join Gevrol in running after some imaginary murderer.  Is this practicable?  Besides, to spare Albert is to defame Noel; it is to assure impunity to the most odious of crimes.  In short, it is still sacrificing justice to my feelings.”

The magistrate suffered greatly.  How choose a path in the midst of so many perplexities!  Impelled by different interests, he wavered, undecided between the most opposite decisions, his mind oscillating from one extreme to the other.

What could he do?  His reason after this new and unforeseen shock vainly sought to regain its equilibrium.