gan to replace his first feeling of
resignation. In his heart arose a hate, stronger and more violent than
even his love for Claire. That other, that preferred one, that haughty
viscount, who could not overcome those paltry obstacles, oh, that he had
him there, under his knee!

At that moment, this noble and proud man, this severe and grave
magistrate experienced an irresistible longing for vengeance. He began
to understand the hate that arms itself with a knife, and lays in ambush
in out-of-the-way places; which strikes in the dark, whether in front
or from behind matters little, but which strikes, which kills, whose
vengeance blood alone can satisfy.

At that very hour he was supposed to be occupied with an inquiry
into the case of an unfortunate, accused of having stabbed one of her
wretched companions. She was jealous of the woman, who had tried to
take her lover from her. He was a soldier, coarse in manners, and always
drunk.

M. Daburon felt himself seized with pity for this miserable creature,
whom he had commenced to examine the day before. She was very ugly, in
fact truly repulsive; but the expression of the eyes, when speaking of
her soldier, returned to the magistrate's memory.

"She loves him sincerely," thought he. "If each one of the jurors had
suffered what I am suffering now, she would be acquitted. But how many
men in this world have loved passionately? Perhaps not one in twenty."

He resolved to recommend this girl to the indulgence of the tribunal,
and to extenuate as much as possible her guilt.

For he himself had just determined upon the commission of a crime. He
was resolved to kill Albert de Commarin.

During the rest of the night he became all the more determined in this
resolution, demonstrating to himself by a thousand mad reasons, which he
found solid and inscrutable, the necessity for and the justifiableness
of this vengeance.

At seven o'clock in the morning, he found himself in an avenue of the
Bois de Boulogne, not far from the lake. He made at once for the Porte
Maillot, procured a cab, and was driven to his house.

The delirium of the night continued, but without suffering. He was
conscious of no fatigue. Calm and cool, he acted under the power of an
hallucination, almost like a somnambulist.

He reflected and reasoned, but without his reason. As soon as he arrived
home he dressed himself with care, as was his custom formerly when
visiting the Marchioness d'Arlange, and went