o your prison. I cannot release
you yet; but you will be no longer in solitary confinement. You will be
treated with every attention due to a prisoner whose innocence appears
probable."

Albert bowed, and thanked him; and was then removed.

"We are now ready for Gevrol," said the magistrate to his clerk.

The chief of detectives was absent: he had been sent for from the
Prefecture of Police; but his witness, the man with the earrings, was
waiting in the passage.

He was told to enter.

He was one of those short, thick-set men, powerful as oaks, who look as
though they could carry almost any weight on their broad shoulders.

His white hair and whiskers set off his features, hardened and tanned
by the inclemency of the weather, the sea winds and the heat of the
tropics.

He had large callous black hands, with big sinewy fingers which must
have possessed the strength of a vice.

Great earrings in the form of anchors hung from his ears. He was dressed
in the costume of a well-to-do Normandy fisherman, out for a holiday.

The clerk was obliged to push him into the office, for this son of the
ocean was timid and abashed when on shore.

He advanced, balancing himself first on one leg, then on the other, with
that irregular walk of the sailor, who, used to the rolling and tossing
of the waves, is surprised to find anything immovable beneath his feet.

To give himself confidence, he fumbled over his soft felt hat, decorated
with little lead medals, like the cap of king Louis XI. of devout
memory, and also adorned with some if that worsted twist made by the
young country girls, on a primitive frame composed of four or five pins
stuck in a hollow cork.

M. Daburon examined him, and estimated him at a glance. There was no
doubt but that he was the sunburnt man described by one of the witnesses
at La Jonchere.

It was also impossible to doubt his honesty. His open countenance
displayed sincerity and good nature.

"Your name?" demanded the investigating magistrate.

"Marie Pierre Lerouge."

"Are you, then, related to Claudine Lerouge?"

"I am her husband, sir."

What, the husband of the victim alive, and the police ignorant of his
existence!

Thus thought M. Daburon.

What, then, does this wonderful progress in invention accomplish?

To-day, precisely as twenty years ago, when Justice is in doubt, it
requires the same inordinate loss of time and money to obtain the
slightest information.

On Friday, they