P.—Go on!
A.—I went therefore to the priest at Brechy, that evening: unluckily there was no one at home at the parsonage when I got there. I was ringing the third or fourth time in vain, when a little peasant-girl came by, who told me that she had just met the priest at the Marshalls’ Cross-roads. I thought at once I would go and meet him, and went in that direction. But I walked more than four miles without meeting him. I thought the girl must have been mistaken, and went home again.
P.—Is that your explanation?
A.—Yes.
P.—And you think it a plausible one?
A.—I have promised to say not what is plausible, but what is true. I may confess, however, that, precisely because the explanation is so simple, I did not venture at first to give it. And yet if no crime had been committed, and I had said the day after, “Yesterday I went to see the priest at Brechy, and did not find him,” who would have seen any thing unnatural in my statement?
P.—And, in order to fulfil so simple a duty, you chose a roundabout way, which is not only troublesome, but actually dangerous, right across the swamps?
A.—I chose the shortest way.
P.—Then, why were you so frightened upon meeting young Ribot at the Seille Canal?
A.—I was not frightened, but simply surprised, as one is apt to be when suddenly meeting a man where no one is expected. And, if I was surprised, young Ribot was not less so.