The judge of instruction looked up from his notes with a surprised air.

“Who is this Sauvresy,” he inquired, “of whom you speak?”

Papa Plantat, who was furiously biting his nails in a corner, apparently a stranger to what was passing, rose abruptly.

“Monsieur Sauvresy,” said he, “was the first husband of Madame de Tremorel.  My friend Courtois has omitted this fact.”

“Oh!” said the mayor, in a wounded tone, “it seems to me that under present circumstances—­”

“Pardon me,” interrupted the judge.  “It is a detail such as may well become valuable, though apparently foreign to the case, and at the first view, insignificant.”

“Hum!” grunted Papa Plantat.  “Insignificant—­foreign to it!”

His tone was so singular, his air so strange, that M. Domini was struck by it.

“Do you share,” he asked, “the opinion of the mayor regarding the Tremorels?”

Plantat shrugged his shoulders.

“I haven’t any opinions,” he answered:  “I live alone—­see nobody; don’t disturb myself about anything.  But—­”

“It seems to me,” said M. Courtois, “that nobody should be better acquainted with people who were my friends than I myself.”

“Then, you are telling the story clumsily,” said M. Plantat, dryly.

The judge of instruction pressed him to explain himself.  So M. Plantat, without more ado, to the great scandal of the mayor, who was thus put into the background, proceeded to dilate upon the main features of the count’s and countess’s biography.

“The Countess de Tremorel, nee Bertha Lechaillu, was the daughter of a poor village school-master.  At eighteen, her beauty was famous for three leagues around, but as she only had for dowry her great blue eyes and blond ringlets, but few serious lovers presented themselves.  Already Bertha, by advice of her family, had resigned herself to take a place as a governess—­a sad position for so beautiful a maid—­when the heir of one of the richest domains in the neighborhood happened to see her, and fell in love with her.

“Clement Sauvresy was just thirty; he had no longer any family, and possessed nearly a hundred thousand livres income from lands absolutely free of incumbrance.  Clearly, he had the best right in the world to choose a wife to his taste.  He did not hesitate.  He asked for Bertha’s hand, won it, and, a month after, wedded her at mid-day, to the great scandal of the neighboring aristocracy, who went about saying:  ’What folly! what good is there in being rich, if it is not to double one’s fortune by a good marriage!’

“Nearly a month before the marriage, Sauvresy set the laborers to work at Valfeuillu, and in no long time had spent, in repairs and furniture, a trifle of thirty thousand crowns.  The newly married pair chose this beautiful spot in which to spend their honeymoon.  They were so well-contented there that they established themselves permanently at Valfeuillu, to the great satisfaction of the neighborhood.