mate with them. The memory of poor Sauvresy was a bond of
happiness between them; if they liked me so well, it was because I
often talked of him. Never a cloud, never a cross word. Hector
--I called him so, familiarly, this poor, dear count--gave his
wife the tender attentions of a lover; those delicate cares, which
I fear most married people soon dispense with."

"And the countess?" asked M. Plantat, in a tone too marked not to
be ironical.

"Bertha?" replied the worthy mayor--"she permitted me to call her
thus, paternally--I have cited her many and many a time as an
example and model, to Madame Courtois. She was worthy of Hector
and of Sauvresy, the two most worthy men I have ever met!"

Then, perceiving that his enthusiasm somewhat surprised his hearers,
he added, more softly:

"I have my reasons for expressing myself thus; and I do not
hesitate to do so before men whose profession and character will
justify my discretion. Sauvresy, when living, did me a great
service--when I was forced to take the mayoralty. As for Hector,
I knew well that he had departed--from the dissipations of his
youth, and thought I discerned that he was not indifferent to my
eldest daughter, Laurence; and I dreamed of a marriage all the more
proper, as, if the Count Hector had a great name, I would give to
my daughter a dowry large enough to gild any escutcheon. Only
events modified my projects."

The mayor would have gone on singing the praises of the Tremorels,
and his own family, if the judge of instruction had not interposed.

"Here I am fixed," he commenced, "now, it seems to me--"

He was interrupted by a loud noise in the vestibule. It seemed
like a struggle, and cries and shouts reached the drawing-room.
Everybody rose.

"I know what it is," said the mayor, "only too well. They have
just found the body of the Count de Tremorel."

IV

The mayor was mistaken. The drawing-room door opened suddenly,
and a man of slender form, who was struggling furiously, and with
an energy which would not have been suspected, appeared, held on
one side by a gendarme, and on the other by a domestic.

The struggle had already lasted long, and his clothes were in great
disorder. His new coat was torn, his cravat floated in strips, the
button of his collar had been wrenched off, and his open shirt left
his breast bare. In the vestibule and court were heard the frantic
cries of the servants and the curious c