“Ah! how can I?”
“If you are innocent, nothing is easier. Tell us how you employed yourself last night.”
“I have told you all I can say.”
The magistrate seemed to reflect for a full minute; then he said,—
“Take care, M. de Boiscoran: I shall have to have you arrested.”
“Do so.”
“I shall be obliged to order your arrest at once, and to send you to jail in Sauveterre.”
“Very well.”
“Then you confess?”
“I confess that I am the victim of an unheard-of combination of circumstances; I confess that you are right, and that certain fatalities can only be explained by the belief in Providence: but I swear by all that is holy in the world, I am innocent.”