he prisoner, that I have made of Trumence an accomplice, and of Blangin
the jailer an agent, that I have helped Miss Dionysia to visit her
betrothed in jail!"

For he had done all this four times more than enough to be dismissed
from his place, and even to become, at least for some months, one of
Blangin's boarders. He shivered all down his back when he thought of
this; and he had been furiously angry, when, one evening, his sisters,
the devout seamstresses, had taken it into their heads to say to him,--

"Certainly, Mechinet, you are a different man ever since that visit of
Miss Chandore."

"Abominable talkers!" he had exclaimed, in a tone of voice which
frightened them out of their wits. "Do you want to see me hanged?"

But, if he had these attacks of rage, he felt not a moment's remorse.
Miss Dionysia had completely bewitched him; and he judged M. Galpin's
conduct as severely as she did.

To be sure, M. Galpin had done nothing contrary to law; but he had
violated the spirit of the law. Having once summoned courage to
begin proceedings against his friend, he had not been able to remain
impartial. Afraid of being charged with timidity, he had exaggerated his
severity. And, above all, he had carried on the inquiry solely in the
interests of a conviction, as if the crime had been proved, and the
prisoner had not protested his innocence.

Now, Mechinet firmly believed in this innocence; and he was fully
persuaded that the day on which Jacques de Boiscoran saw his counsel
would be the day of his justification. This will show with what
eagerness he went to the court-house to wait for M. Magloire.

But at noon the great lawyer had not yet come. He was still consulting
with M. de Chandore.

"Could any thing amiss have happened?" thought the clerk.

And his restlessness was so great, that, instead of going home to
breakfast with his sisters, he sent an office-boy for a roll and a glass
of water. At last, as three o'clock struck, M. Magloire and M. Folgat
arrived; and Mechinet saw at once in their faces, that he had been
mistaken, and that Jacques had not explained. Still, before M. Magloire,
he did not dare inquire.

"Here are the papers," he said simply, putting upon the table an immense
box.

Then, drawing M. Folgat aside, he asked,--

"What is the matter, pray?"

The clerk had certainly acted so well, that they could have no secret
from him; and he so was fully committed, that there was no danger in
relying