ove our heads have
some strong interest in getting me mistaken for some villain, so as to
have a right to get rid of me. It is not all profit to serve a king;
they have their meannesses. The Church alone is faultless."

It is impossible to do justice to the play of Jacques Collin's
countenance as he carefully spun out his speech, sentence by sentence,
for ten minutes; and it was all so plausible, especially the mention of
Corentin, that the lawyer was shaken.

"Will you confide to me the reasons of your affection for Monsieur
Lucien de Rubempre?"

"Can you not guess them? I am sixty years of age, monsieur--I implore
you do not write it.--It is because--must I say it?"

"It will be to your own advantage, and more particularly to Monsieur
Lucien de Rubempre's, if you tell everything," replied the judge.

"Because he is--Oh, God! he is my son," he gasped out with an effort.

And he fainted away.

"Do not write that down, Coquart," said Camusot in an undertone.

Coquart rose to fetch a little phial of "Four thieves' Vinegar."

"If he is Jacques Collin, he is a splendid actor!" thought Camusot.

Coquart held the phial under the convict's nose, while the judge
examined him with the keen eye of a lynx--and a magistrate.

"Take his wig off," said Camusot, after waiting till the man recovered
consciousness.

Jacques Collin heard, and quaked with terror, for he knew how vile an
expression his face would assume.

"If you have not strength enough to take your wig off yourself----Yes,
Coquart, remove it," said Camusot to his clerk.

Jacques Collin bent his head to the clerk with admirable resignation;
but then his head, bereft of that adornment, was hideous to behold in
its natural aspect.

The sight of it left Camusot in the greatest uncertainty. While waiting
for the doctor and the man from the infirmary, he set to work to
classify and examine the various papers and the objects seized
in Lucien's rooms. After carrying out their functions in the Rue
Saint-Georges at Mademoiselle Esther's house, the police had searched
the rooms at the Quai Malaquais.

"You have your hand on some letters from the Comtesse de Serizy," said
Carlos Herrera. "But I cannot imagine why you should have almost all
Lucien's papers," he added, with a smile of overwhelming irony at the
judge.

Camusot, as he saw the smile, understood the bearing of the word
"almost."

"Lucien de Rubempre is in custody under suspicion of being your
accom