“Have you ever spoken of that to the priest?”
“Several times. One day especially, when we discussed it in a pleasant way, he said jestingly to me, ‘I shall have you, after all in my confessional.’”
M. Folgat almost trembled with satisfaction, and Jacques saw it.
“Then the priest at Brechy was your friend?”
“An intimate friend. He sometimes came to dine with me quite unceremoniously, and I never passed him without shaking hands with him.”
The young lawyer’s joy was growing perceptibly.
“Well,” he said, “my explanation is becoming quite plausible. Just hear what I have positively ascertained to be the fact. In the time from nine to eleven o’clock, on the night of the crime, there was not a soul at the parsonage in Brechy. The priest was dining with M. Besson, at his house; and his servant had gone out to meet him with a lantern.”
“I understand,” said M. Magloire.
“Why should you not have gone to see the priest at Brechy, my dear client? In the first place, you had to arrange the details of the ceremony with him; then, as he is your friend, and a man of experience, and a priest, you wanted to ask him for his advice before taking so grave a step, and, finally, you intended to fulfil that religious duty of which he spoke, and which you were rather reluctant to comply with.”
“Well said!” approved the eminent lawyer of Sauveterre,—“very well said!”