and walk right off. We
told her it could not be so; but she did not mind us. She told us over
and over again that she was quite sure that she saw that statue come
up the avenue, and take a place behind the tree which is nearest to the
parlor-window."

Trumence looked triumphant.

"That was I!" he cried.

The girl looked at him, and said, only moderately surprised,--

"That may very well be."

"What do you know about it?" asked M. Daubigeon.

"I know it must have been a man who had stolen into the garden, and who
had frightened Miss Martha so terribly, because Dr. Seignebos dropped,
in going out, a five-franc piece just at the foot of that tree, where
miss said she had seen the man standing. The valet who showed the doctor
out helped him look for his money; and, as they sought with the candle,
they saw the footprints of a man who wore iron-shod shoes."

"The marks of my shoes!" broke in Trumence again; and sitting down, and
raising his legs, he said to the magistrate,--

"Just look at my shoes, and you will see there is no lack of iron
nails!"

But there was no need for such evidence; and he was told,--

"Never mind that! We believe you."

"And you, my good girl," said M. Daubigeon again, "can you tell us, if,
after these occurrences, Count Claudieuse had any explanation with your
mistress?"

"No, I do not know. Only I saw that the count and the countess were no
longer as they used to be with each other."

That was all she knew. She was asked to sign her deposition; and then M.
Daubigeon told her she might go.

Then, turning to Trumence, he said,--

"You will be taken to jail now. But you are an honest man, and you need
not give yourself any trouble. Go now."

The magistrate and the commonwealth attorney remained alone now, since,
of course, a clerk counts for nothing.

"Well," said M. Daubigeon, "what do you think of that?"

M. Galpin was dumfounded.

"It is enough to make one mad," he murmured.

"Do you begin to see how that M. Folgat was right when he said the case
was far from being so clear as you pretended?"

"Ah! who would not have been deceived as I was? You yourself, at one
time at least, were of my opinion. And yet, if the Countess Claudieuse
and M. de Boiscoran are both innocent, who is the guilty one?"

"That is what we shall know very soon; for I am determined I will not
allow myself a moment's rest till I have found out the truth of the
whole matter. How fortunate it was that t