“You are joking. But what would have happened if I had listened to you?”
“I don’t care to know.”
“M. de Boiscoran would none the less have been sent to a jury.”
“May be.”
“Anybody else would have collected the proofs of his guilt just as well as I.”
“That is a question.”
“And I should have injured my reputation very seriously; for they would have called me one of those timid magistrates who are frightened at a nothing.”
“That is as good a reputation as some others,” broke in the commonwealth attorney.
He had vowed he would answer only in monosyllables; but his anger made him forget his oath. He added in a very severe tone,—
“Another man would not have been bent exclusively upon proving that M. de Boiscoran was guilty.”