with a vile murder!"

And now it was his duty to cause to be arrested, to interrogate, and
hand over to the assizes the man he had once resolved to kill.

All the world, it is true, ignored this crime of thought and intention;
but could he himself forget it? Was not this, of all others, a case in
which he should decline to be mixed up? Ought he not to withdraw, and
wash his hands of the blood that had been shed, leaving to another the
task of avenging him in the name of society?

"No," said he, "it would be a cowardice unworthy of me."

A project of mad generosity occurred to the bewildered man. "If I save
him," murmured he, "if for Claire's sake I leave him his honour and his
life. But how can I save him? To do so I shall be obliged to suppress
old Tabaret's discoveries, and make an accomplice of him by ensuring his
silence. We shall have to follow a wrong track, join Gevrol in running
after some imaginary murderer. Is this practicable? Besides, to spare
Albert is to defame Noel; it is to assure impunity to the most odious of
crimes. In short, it is still sacrificing justice to my feelings."

The magistrate suffered greatly. How choose a path in the midst of
so many perplexities! Impelled by different interests, he wavered,
undecided between the most opposite decisions, his mind oscillating from
one extreme to the other.

What could he do? His reason after this new and unforeseen shock vainly
sought to regain its equilibrium.

"Resign?" said he to himself. "Where, then, would be my courage? Ought
I not rather to remain the representative of the law, incapable of
emotion, insensible to prejudice? am I so weak that, in assuming my
office, I am unable to divest myself of my personality? Can I not, for
the present, make abstraction of the past? My duty is to pursue this
investigation. Claire herself would desire me to act thus. Would she wed
a man suspected of a crime? Never. If he is innocent, he will be saved;
if guilty, let him perish!"

This was very sound reasoning; but, at the bottom of his heart, a
thousand disquietudes darted their thorns. He wanted to reassure
himself.

"Do I still hate this young man?" he continued. "No, certainly. If
Claire has preferred him to me, it is to Claire and not to him I owe my
suffering. My rage was no more than a passing fit of delirium. I will
prove it, by letting him find me as much a counsellor as a magistrate.
If he is not guilty, he shall make use of all the means in m