“Why despair?” she went on, with a shrug that sufficiently expressed her indifference as to the prisoner’s end.  “This suicide will delight Lucien’s two enemies, Madame d’Espard and her cousin, the Comtesse du Chatelet.  Madame d’Espard is on the best terms with the Keeper of the Seals; through her you can get an audience of His Excellency and tell him all the secrets of this business.  Then, if the head of the law is on your side, what have you to fear from the president of your Court or the public prosecutor?”

“But, Monsieur and Madame de Serizy?” cried the poor man.  “Madame de Serizy is gone mad, I tell you, and her madness is my doing, they say.”

“Well, if she is out of her mind, O judge devoid of judgment,” said Madame Camusot, laughing, “she can do you no harm.—­Come, tell me all the incidents of the day.”

“Bless me!” said Camusot, “just as I had cross-questioned the unhappy youth, and he had deposed that the self-styled Spanish priest is really Jacques Collin, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Madame de Serizy sent me a note by a servant begging me not to examine him.  It was all over!——­”

“But you must have lost your head!” said Amelie.  “What was to prevent you, being so sure as you are of your clerk’s fidelity, from calling Lucien back, reassuring him cleverly, and revising the examination?”

“Why, you are as bad as Madame de Serizy; you laugh justice to scorn,” said Camusot, who was incapable of flouting his profession.  “Madame de Serizy seized the minutes and threw them into the fire.”

“That is the right sort of woman!  Bravo!” cried Madame Camusot.

“Madame de Serizy declared she would sooner see the Palais blown up than leave a young man who had enjoyed the favors of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and her own to stand at the bar of a Criminal court by the side of a convict!”

“But, Camusot,” said Amelie, unable to suppress a superior smile, “your position is splendid——­”

“Ah! yes, splendid!”

“You did your duty.”

“But all wrong; and in spite of the jesuitical advice of Monsieur de Granville, who met me on the Quai Malaquais.”

“This morning!”

“This morning.”

“At what hour?”

“At nine o’clock.”

“Oh, Camusot!” cried Amelie, clasping and wringing her hands, “and I am always imploring you to be constantly on the alert.—­Good heavens! it is not a man, but a barrow-load of stones that I have to drag on!  —­Why, Camusot, your public prosecutor was waiting for you.—­He must have given you some warning.”

“Yes, indeed——­”

“And you failed to understand him!  If you are so deaf, you will indeed be an examining judge all your life without any knowledge whatever of the question.—­At any rate, have sense enough to listen to me,” she went on, silencing her husband, who was about to speak.  “You think the matter is done for?” she asked.