In spite of his own troubles, Prosper could not help seeing that this man kept his eyes fastened upon him.  Did he know him?  Vainly did he try to recollect having met him before.

This man, treated with all the deference due to a chief, was no less a personage than M. Lecoq, a celebrated member of the detective corps.

When the men who were searching Prosper were about to take off his boots, saying that a knife might be concealed in them.  M. Lecoq waved them aside with an air of authority, and said: 

“You have done enough.”

He was obeyed.  All the formalities being ended, the unfortunate cashier was taken to a narrow cell; the heavily barred door was swung to and locked upon him; he breathed freely; at last he was alone.

Yes, he believed himself to be alone.  He was ignorant that a prison is made of glass, that the accused is like a miserable insect under the microscope of an entomologist.  He knew not that the walls have stretched ears and watchful eyes.

He was so sure of being alone that he at once gave vent to his suppressed feelings, and, dropping his mask of impassibility, burst into a flood of tears.  His long-restrained anger now flashed out like a smouldering fire.

In a paroxysm of rage he uttered imprecations and curses.  He dashed himself against the prison-walls like a wild beast in a cage.

Prosper Bertomy was not the man he appeared to be.

This haughty, correct gentleman had ardent passions and a fiery temperament.

One day, when he was about twenty-four years of age, he had become suddenly fired by ambition.  While all of his desires were repressed, imprisoned in his low estate, like an athlete in a strait-jacket, seeing around him all these rich people with whom money assumed the place of the wand in the fairy-tale, he envied their lot.

He studied the beginnings of these financial princes, and found that at the starting-point they possessed far less than himself.

How, then, had they succeeded?  By force of energy, industry, and assurance.

He determined to imitate and excel them.

From this day, with a force of will much less rare than we think, he imposed silence upon his instincts.  He reformed not his morals, but his manners; and so strictly did he conform to the rules of decorum, that he was regarded as a model of propriety by those who knew him, and had faith in his character; and his capabilities and ambition inspired the prophecy that he would be successful in attaining eminence and wealth.

And the end of all was this:  imprisoned for robbery; that is, ruined!

For he did not attempt to deceive himself.  He knew that, guilty or innocent, a man once suspected is as ineffaceably branded as the shoulder of a galley-slave.

Therefore what was the use of struggling?  What benefit was a triumph which could not wash out the stain?