This time Albert decided to speak.
His explanations corresponded exactly with Claire’s; not one detail more. Henceforth, doubt was impossible.
Mademoiselle d’Arlange had not been imposed upon. Either Albert was innocent, or she was his accomplice.
Could she knowingly be the accomplice of such an odious crime? No; she could not even be suspected of it.
But who then was the assassin?
For, when a crime has been committed, justice demands a culprit.
“You see, sir,” said the magistrate severely to Albert, “you did deceive me. You risked your life, sir, and, what is also very serious, you exposed me, you exposed justice, to commit a most deplorable mistake. Why did you not tell me the truth at once?”
“Mademoiselle d’Arlange, sir,” replied Albert, “in according me a meeting, trusted in my honour.”
“And you would have died sooner than mention that interview?” interrupted M. Daburon with a touch of irony. “That is all very fine, sir, and worthy of the days of chivalry!”
“I am not the hero that you suppose, sir,” replied the prisoner simply. “If I told you that I did not count on Claire, I should be telling a falsehood. I was waiting for her. I knew that, on learning of my arrest, she would brave everything to save me. But her friends might have hid it from her; and that was what I feared. In that event, I do not think, so far as one can answer for oneself, that I should have mentioned her name.”