Theodore, startled at the sound of that voice, raised his head, and at first thought himself the victim of a delusion; but as the experience of two months had accustomed him to the darkness of this stone box, he looked at the sham priest, and sighed deeply.  He did not recognize Jacques Collin, whose face, scarred by the application of sulphuric acid, was not that of his old boss.

“It is really your Jacques; I am your confessor, and have come to get you off.  Do not be such a ninny as to know me; and speak as if you were making a confession.”  He spoke with the utmost rapidity.  “This young fellow is very much depressed; he is afraid to die, he will confess everything,” said Jacques Collin, addressing the gendarme.

Bibi-Lupin dared not say a word for fear of being recognized.

“Say something to show me that you are he; you have nothing but his voice,” said Theodore.

“You see, poor boy, he assures me that he is innocent,” said Jacques Collin to Bibi-Lupin, who dared not speak for fear of being recognized.

“Sempre mi,” said Jacques, returning close to Theodore, and speaking the word in his ear.

“Sempre ti,” replied Theodore, giving the countersign.  “Yes, you are the boss——­”

“Did you do the trick?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me the whole story, that I may see what can be done to save you; make haste, Jack Ketch is waiting.”

The Corsican at once knelt down and pretended to be about to confess.

Bibi-Lupin did not know what to do, for the conversation was so rapid that it hardly took as much time as it does to read it.  Theodore hastily told all the details of the crime, of which Jacques Collin knew nothing.

“The jury gave their verdict without proof,” he said finally.

“Child! you want to argue when they are waiting to cut off your hair——­”

“But I might have been sent to spout the wedge.—­And that is the way they judge you!—­and in Paris too!”

“But how did you do the job?” asked Trompe-la-Mort.

“Ah! there you are.—­Since I saw you I made acquaintance with a girl, a Corsican, I met when I came to Paris.”

“Men who are such fools as to love a woman,” cried Jacques Collin, “always come to grief that way.  They are tigers on the loose, tigers who blab and look at themselves in the glass.—­You were a gaby.”

“But——­”

“Well, what good did she do you—­that curse of a moll?”

“That duck of a girl—­no taller than a bundle of firewood, as slippery as an eel, and as nimble as a monkey—­got in at the top of the oven, and opened the front door.  The dogs were well crammed with balls, and as dead as herrings.  I settled the two women.  Then when I got the swag, Ginetta locked the door and got out again by the oven.”

“Such a clever dodge deserves life,” said Jacques Collin, admiring the execution of the crime as a sculptor admires the modeling of a figure.