“I cannot?”
“No. The commonwealth attorney has sent us orders not to let any one, except the sister who nurses him, come near Cocoleu,—no one, doctor, not even the physician, a case of urgency, of course, excepted.”
Dr. Seignebos smiled ironically. Then he said, laughing scornfully,—
“Ah, these are your orders, are they? Well, I tell you that I do not mind them in the least. Who can prevent me from seeing my patient? Tell me that! Let the commonwealth attorney give his orders in his court-house as much as he chooses: that is all right. But in my hospital! My sister, I am going to Cocoleu’s room.”
“Doctor, you cannot go there. There is a gendarme at the door.”
“A gendarme?”
“Yes, he came this morning with the strictest orders.”
For a moment the doctor was overcome. Then he suddenly broke out with unusual violence, and a voice that made the windows shake,—
“This is unheard of! This is an abominable abuse of power! I’ll have my rights, and justice shall be done me, if I have to go to Thiers!”
Then he rushed out without ceremony, crossed the yard, and disappeared like an arrow, in the direction of the court-house. At that very moment M. Daubigeon was getting up, feeling badly because he had had a bad, sleepless night, thanks to this unfortunate affair of M. de Boiscoran, which troubled him sorely; for he was almost of M. Galpin’s opinion. In vain he recalled Jacques’s noble character, his well-known uprightness, his keen sense of honor, the evidence was so strong, so overwhelming! He wanted to doubt; but experience told him that a man’s past is no guarantee for his future. And, besides, like many great criminal lawyers, he thought, what he would never have ventured to say openly, that some great criminals act while they are under the influence of a kind of vertigo, and that this explains the stupidity of certain crimes committed by men of superior intelligence.