Once more M. Patrigent was on the wrong track, owing to Fanferlot’s incomplete information.

He had hoped that Prosper would betray himself by uttering some passionate retort when thus wounded to the quick; but he remained impassible.  Of all the judge said to him his mind dwelt upon only one word—­Caldas, the name of the poor travelling agent who had killed himself.

“At any rate,” insisted M. Patrigent, “you will confess that this girl has caused your ruin.”

“I cannot confess that, monsieur, for it is not true.”

“Yet she is the occasion of your extravagance.  Listen.”  The judge here drew a bill from the file of papers.  “During December you paid her dressmaker, Van Klopen, for two walking dresses, nine hundred francs; one evening dress, seven hundred francs; one domino, trimmed with lace, four hundred francs.”

“I spent this money cheerfully, but nevertheless I was not especially attached to her.”

M. Patrigent shrugged his shoulders.

“You cannot deny the evidence,” said he.  “I suppose you will also say that it was not for this girl’s sake you ceased spending your evenings at M. Fauvel’s?”

“I swear that she was not the cause of my ceasing to visit M. Fauvel’s family.”

“Then why did you cease, suddenly, your attentions to a young lady whom you confidently expected to marry, and whose hand you had written to your father to demand for you?”

“I had reasons which I cannot reveal,” answered Prosper with emotion.

The judge breathed freely; at last he had discovered a vulnerable point in the prisoner’s armor.

“Did Mlle. Madeleine banish you?”

Prosper was silent, and seemed agitated.

“Speak,” said M. Patrigent; “I must tell you that this circumstance is one of the most important in your case.”

“Whatever the cost may be, on this subject I am compelled to keep silence.”

“Beware of what you do; justice will not be satisfied with scruples of conscience.”

M. Patrigent waited for an answer.  None came.

“You persist in your obstinacy, do you?  Well, we will go on to the next question.  You have, during the last year, spent fifty thousand francs.  Your resources are at an end, and your credit is exhausted; to continue your mode of life was impossible.  What did you intend to do?”

“I had no settled plan.  I thought it might last as long as it would, and then I——­”

“And then you would draw from the safe!”

“Ah, monsieur, if I were guilty, I should not be here!  I should never have been such a fool as to return to the bank; I should have fled.”

M. Patrigent could not restrain a smile of satisfaction, and exclaimed: