“Yes, yes!”
“Well, then you must help me to find him out, so that the gendarmes may catch him, and put him in jail. You know who it is; you have told these people and”—
He paused, and after a moment, as Cocoleu kept silent, he asked,—
“But, now I think of it, whom has this poor fellow talked to?”
Not one of the peasants could tell. They inquired; but no answer came. Perhaps Cocoleu had never said what he was reported to have said.
“The fact is,” said one of the tenants at Valpinson, “that the poor devil, so to say, never sleeps, and that he is roaming about all night around the house and the farm buildings.”
This was a new light for M. Galpin; suddenly changing the form of his interrogatory, he asked Cocoleu,—
“Where did you spend the night?”
“In—in—the—court—yard.”
“Were you asleep when the fire broke out?”