etty Parisian lady.
After this quarrel, they were no longer seen at the Belle Image."

The old justice of the peace smiled.

"Melun is not at the end of the world," said he, "and there are
hotels at Melun. With a good horse, one is soon at Fontainebleau,
at Versailles, even at Paris. Madame de Tremorel might have been
jealous; her husband had some first-rate trotters in his stables."

Did M. Plantat give an absolutely disinterested opinion, or did he
make an insinuation? The judge of instruction looked at him
attentively, to reassure himself, but his visage expressed nothing
but a profound serenity. He told the story as he would any other,
no matter what.

"Please go on, Monsieur," resumed M. Domini.

"Alas!" said M. Plantat, "nothing here below is eternal, not even
grief. I know it better than anybody. Soon, to the tears of the
first days, to violent despair, there succeeded, in the count and
Madame Bertha, a reasonable sadness, then a soft melancholy. And
in one year after Sauvresy's death Monsieur de Tremorel espoused
his widow."

During this long narrative the mayor had several times exhibited
marks of impatience. At the end, being able to hold in no longer,
he exclaimed:

"There, those are surely exact details; but I question whether they
have advanced us a step in this grave matter which occupies us all
--to find the murderers of the count and countess."

M. Plantat, at these words, bent on the judge of instruction his
clear and deep look, as if to search his conscience to the bottom.

"These details were indispensable," returned M. Domini, "and they
are very clear. Those rendezvous at the hotel struck me; one knows
not to what extremities jealousy might lead a woman--"

He stopped abruptly, seeking, no doubt, some connection between the
pretty Parisian and the murderers; then resumed:

"Now that I know the Tremorels as if I had lived with them
intimately, let us proceed to the actual facts."

The brilliant eye of M. Plantat immediately grew dim; he opened his
lips as if to speak; but kept his peace. The doctor alone, who had
not ceased to study the old justice of the peace, remarked the sudden
change of his features.

"It only remains," said M. Domini, "to know how the new couple lived."

M. Courtois thought it due to his dignity to anticipate M. Plantat.

"You ask how the new couple lived," said he hastily; "they lived in
perfect concord; nobody knows better about it than I, who was most
inti