he found that all Madelon had said about the intimate terms on
which master and journeyman had lived was fully confirmed. The people
in the same house, as well as the neighbours, unanimously agreed in
commending Olivier as a pattern of goodness, morality, faithfulness,
and industry; nobody knew anything evil about him, and yet when mention
was made of his heinous deed, they all shrugged their shoulders and
thought there was something passing comprehension in it.

Olivier, on being arraigned before the _Chambre Ardente_ denied the
deed imputed to him, as Mademoiselle learned, with the most steadfast
firmness and with honest sincerity, maintaining that his master had
been attacked in the street in his presence and stabbed, that then, as
there were still signs of life in him, he had himself carried him home,
where Cardillac had soon afterwards expired. And all this too
harmonised with Madelon's account.

Again and again and again De Scuderi had the minutest details of the
terrible event repeated to her. She inquired minutely whether there had
ever been a quarrel between master and journeyman, whether Olivier was
perhaps not subject occasionally to those hasty fits of passion which
often attack even the most good-natured of men like a blind madness,
impelling the commission of deeds which appear to be done quite
independent of voluntary action. But in proportion as Madelon spoke
with increasing heartfelt warmth of the quiet domestic happiness in
which the three had lived, united by the closest ties of affection,
every shadow of suspicion against poor Olivier, now being tried for his
life, vanished away. Scrupulously weighing every point and starting
with the assumption that Olivier, in spite of all the things which
spoke so loudly for his innocence, was nevertheless Cardillac's
murderer, De Scuderi did not find any motive within the bounds of
possibility for the hideous deed; for from every point of view it would
necessarily destroy his happiness. He is poor but clever. He has
succeeded in gaining the good-will of the most renowned master of his
trade; he loves his master's daughter; his master looks upon his love
with a favourable eye; happiness and prosperity seem likely to be his
lot through life. But now suppose that, provoked in some way that God
alone may know, Olivier had been so overmastered by anger as to make a
murderous attempt upon his benefactor, his father, what diabolical
hypocrisy he must have practised to