“No, mademoiselle, he burnt it.”
Claire drew back. She imagined she felt a touch of irony in the magistrate’s reply. There was none, however. M. Daburon remembered the letter thrown into the fire by Albert on the Tuesday afternoon. It could only been the one Claire had sent him. It was to her, then, that the words, “She cannot resist me,” applied. He understood, now, the action and the remark.
“Can you understand, mademoiselle,” he next asked, “how M. de Commarin could lead justice astray, and expose me to committing a most deplorable error, when it would have been so easy to have told me all this?”
“It seems to me, sir, that an honourable man cannot confess that he has obtained a secret interview from a lady, until he has full permission from her to do so. He ought to risk his life sooner than the honour of her who has trusted in him; but be assured Albert relied on me.”
There was nothing to reply to this; and the sentiments expressed by Mademoiselle d’Arlange gave a meaning to one of Albert’s replies in the examination.
“This is not all yet, mademoiselle,” continued the magistrate; “all that you have told me here, you must repeat in my office, at the Palais de Justice. My clerk will take down your testimony, and you must sign it. This proceeding will be painful to you; but it is a necessary formality.”
“Ah, sir, I will do so with pleasure. What can I refuse, when I know that he is in prison? I was determined to do everything. If he had been tried at the assizes, I would have gone there. Yes, I would have presented myself, and there before all I would have told the truth. Doubtless,” she added sadly, “I should have been greatly compromised. I should have been looked upon as a heroine of romance; but what matters public opinion, the blame or approval of the world, since I am sure of his love?”
She rose from her seat, readjusting her cloak and the strings of her bonnet.
“Is it necessary,” she asked, “that I should await the return of the police agents who are examining the wall?”
“It is needless, mademoiselle.”