ls in a corner,
apparently a stranger to what was passing, rose abruptly.

"Monsieur Sauvresy," said he, "was the first husband of Madame de
Tremorel. My friend Courtois has omitted this fact."

"Oh!" said the mayor, in a wounded tone, "it seems to me that under
present circumstances--"

"Pardon me," interrupted the judge. "It is a detail such as may
well become valuable, though apparently foreign to the case, and
at the first view, insignificant."

"Hum!" grunted Papa Plantat. "Insignificant--foreign to it!"

His tone was so singular, his air so strange, that M. Domini was
struck by it.

"Do you share," he asked, "the opinion of the mayor regarding the
Tremorels?"

Plantat shrugged his shoulders.

"I haven't any opinions," he answered: "I live alone--see nobody;
don't disturb myself about anything. But--"

"It seems to me," said M. Courtois, "that nobody should be better
acquainted with people who were my friends than I myself."

"Then, you are telling the story clumsily," said M. Plantat, dryly.

The judge of instruction pressed him to explain himself. So M.
Plantat, without more ado, to the great scandal of the mayor, who
was thus put into the background, proceeded to dilate upon the main
features of the count's and countess's biography.

"The Countess de Tremorel, nee Bertha Lechaillu, was the daughter
of a poor village school-master. At eighteen, her beauty was
famous for three leagues around, but as she only had for dowry her
great blue eyes and blond ringlets, but few serious lovers presented
themselves. Already Bertha, by advice of her family, had resigned
herself to take a place as a governess--a sad position for so
beautiful a maid--when the heir of one of the richest domains in
the neighborhood happened to see her, and fell in love with her.

"Clement Sauvresy was just thirty; he had no longer any family,
and possessed nearly a hundred thousand livres income from lands
absolutely free of incumbrance. Clearly, he had the best right in
the world to choose a wife to his taste. He did not hesitate. He
asked for Bertha's hand, won it, and, a month after, wedded her at
mid-day, to the great scandal of the neighboring aristocracy, who
went about saying: 'What folly! what good is there in being rich,
if it is not to double one's fortune by a good marriage!'

"Nearly a month before the marriage, Sauvresy set the laborers to
work at Valfeuillu, and in no long time had spent, in repairs and
furniture,