“Had Monsieur and Madame Sauvresy no children?” asked the judge of instruction.

“No,” answered the mayor.

M. Plantat continued: 

“The grief of the count and the young widow was intense.  M. de Tremorel, especially, seemed absolutely desperate, and acted like a madman.  The countess shut herself up, forbidding even those whom she loved best from entering her chamber—­even Madame Courtois.  When the count and Madame Bertha reappeared, they were scarcely to be recognized, so much had both changed.  Monsieur Hector seemed to have grown twenty years older.  Would they keep the oath made at the death-bed of Sauvresy, of which everyone was apprised?  This was asked with all the more curiosity, because their profound sorrow for a man who well merited it, was admired.”

The judge of instruction stopped M. Plantat with a motion of his hand.

“Do you know,” asked he, “whether the rendezvous at the Hotel Belle Image had ceased?”

“I suppose so, sir; I think so.”

“I am almost sure of it,” said Dr. Gendron.  “I have often heard it said—­they know everything at Corbeil—­that there was a heated explanation between M. de Tremorel and the pretty Parisian lady.  After this quarrel, they were no longer seen at the Belle Image.”

The old justice of the peace smiled.

“Melun is not at the end of the world,” said he, “and there are hotels at Melun.  With a good horse, one is soon at Fontainebleau, at Versailles, even at Paris.  Madame de Tremorel might have been jealous; her husband had some first-rate trotters in his stables.”

Did M. Plantat give an absolutely disinterested opinion, or did he make an insinuation?  The judge of instruction looked at him attentively, to reassure himself, but his visage expressed nothing but a profound serenity.  He told the story as he would any other, no matter what.

“Please go on, Monsieur,” resumed M. Domini.

“Alas!” said M. Plantat, “nothing here below is eternal, not even grief.  I know it better than anybody.  Soon, to the tears of the first days, to violent despair, there succeeded, in the count and Madame Bertha, a reasonable sadness, then a soft melancholy.  And in one year after Sauvresy’s death Monsieur de Tremorel espoused his widow.”

During this long narrative the mayor had several times exhibited marks of impatience.  At the end, being able to hold in no longer, he exclaimed: 

“There, those are surely exact details; but I question whether they have advanced us a step in this grave matter which occupies us all—­ to find the murderers of the count and countess.”

M. Plantat, at these words, bent on the judge of instruction his clear and deep look, as if to search his conscience to the bottom.

“These details were indispensable,” returned M. Domini, “and they are very clear.  Those rendezvous at the hotel struck me; one knows not to what extremities jealousy might lead a woman—­”