Saniel thought that the judge looked at him with a disagreeable persistency.

“No,” he said, sharply.

Then rising, he said, more calmly: 

“That is not in my line.”

He had nothing to do but to retire, which he did; and on passing through the vestibule he said to himself that the magistrate was right.  He believed that he held a criminal.  Why should he let him go?

As for him, he had done what he could.

CHAPTER XXII

NOUGAREDE’S BRIDE

Saniel passed the first proofs of his two ‘concours’ so brilliantly that the results of either were not doubtful.  In delivering his thesis for the ‘agregation’, he commanded the admiration of his audience; by turns aggressive, severe, ironical, eloquent, he reduced his adversary to such an extremity that, overwhelmed, he was not able to reply.  In his lecture at the hospital, his eloquence and his clear demonstration convinced the judges who were opposed to him that he was in the right.

What could Caffie’s death weigh, placed in the balance with these results?  So little that it counted for nothing, and would have held no place in his thoughts if it had not been mixed in his mind with the accusation that would send Florentin to the assizes.

Cleared of this fact, the death of the old man rarely crossed his mind.  He had other things in his head, truly, than this memory which brought neither regret nor remorse; and it was not at this moment, when he touched the end at which he aimed, that he would embarrass himself, or sadden his triumph, with Caffie.

A little before the expiration of the two months, during which time the poste restante retained the letters containing the thirty thousand francs, he called for them, and readdressed and mailed them to other post-offices.

What did he want of this money, which was, in reality, a nuisance?  His habits remained the same, except that he no longer struggled with his creditors, and paid cash for everything.  He had no desire to make any change in his former mode of living; his ambition was otherwise and higher than in the small satisfactions, very small for him, that money gives.

Days passed without a thought of Caffie, except in connection with Florentin.  But Florentin, and above all, Phillis, reminded him that the comfort he enjoyed he owed to Caffie’s death, and he was troubled accordingly.

He did not believe that the investigations of the law would reach him now; everything conspired to confirm him in his scrutiny.  That which he arranged so laboriously had succeeded according to his wish, and the only imprudence that he had committed, in a moment of aberration, seemed not to have been observed; no one had noticed his presence in the cafe opposite Caffie’s house, and no one was astonished at his pertinacity in remaining there at an hour so unusual.