“I was very wrong to pronounce this condemnation, which I did without attaching any importance to it.”

“Do you think that hastened its execution?”

“I am not so foolish as that, but I should be better pleased if I had not condemned him.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I regret that he is dead.”

“Decidedly, the enigma continues; but you know I do not understand it, and, if you wish, we will stop there.  We have something better to do than to talk of Caffie.”

“On the contrary, let me talk to you of him, because we want your advice.”

Again he looked at her, trying to read her face and to divine why she insisted on speaking of Caffie, when he had just expressed a wish not to speak of him.  What was there beneath this insistence?

“I will listen,” he said; “and, since you wish to ask my advice on the subject, you must tell me immediately what you mean.”

“You are right; and I should have told you before, but embarrassment and shame restrained me.  And I reproach myself, for with you I should feel neither embarrassment nor reproach.”

“Assuredly.”

“But before everything else, I must tell you—­you must know—­that my brother Florentin is a good and honest boy; you must believe it, you must be convinced of it.”

“I am, since you tell me so.  Besides, he produced the best impression on me during the short time I saw him the other day at your house.”

“Would not one see immediately that he has a good nature?”

“Certainly.”

“Frank and upright; weak, it is true, and a little effeminate also, that is, lacking energy, letting himself be carried away by goodness and tenderness.  This weakness made him commit a fault before his departure for America.  I have kept it from you until this moment, but you must know it now.  Loving a woman who controlled him and made him do what she wished, he let himself be persuaded to-take a sum of forty-five francs that she demanded, that she insisted on having that evening, hoping to be able to replace it three days later, without his employer discovering it.”

“His employer was Caffie?”

“No; it was three months after he left Caffie, and he was with another man of business of whom I have never spoken to you, and now you understand why.  The money he expected failed him; his fault was discovered, and his employer lodged a complaint against him.”

“We made him withdraw his complaint, never mind how, and Florentin went to America to seek his fortune.  And since you have seen him, you admit that he might be capable of the fault that he committed, without being capable-of becoming an assassin.”

He was about to reply, but she closed his lips with a quick gesture.

“You will see why I speak of this, and you will understand why I do not drop the subject of Caffie, and of this button, on which the police count to find the criminal.  This button belonged to Florentin.”