"Oh! aunt, aunt!"
But she shrugged her shoulders. Why should she tell the magistrate falsehoods?
"He kissed her, tickled her, perhaps. There is no crime in that. And what makes me admit this, is that the invention does not come from the quarryman. Louisette must be the falsehood-teller, the vicious creature who exaggerated things, in order to get her lover to keep her with him, perhaps. So that the latter, a brute, as I have told you, ended in good faith by imagining that we had killed his sweetheart. In fact he was mad with rage, and repeated in all the drinking-places that if the President fell into his hands, he would bleed him like a pig."
The magistrate, who had been silent up to then, interrupted her sharply.
"He said that? Are there any witnesses to prove it?"
"Oh! my dear sir, you will be able to find as many as you please. In conclusion, it was a very sad business, and caused us a great deal of annoyance. Fortunately, the position of my brother placed him beyond suspicion."
Madame Bonnehon had just discovered the new clue that M. Denizet was following, and this made her rather anxious. She preferred not to venture further, by questioning him in her turn. He had risen, and said he would not take any further advantage of the civility of the family in their painful position. By his orders, the registrar read over the examinations of the witnesses, before they signed them. They were perfectly correct, so thoroughly purged of all unnecessary and entangling words that Madame Bonnehon, with her pen in her hand, cast a glance of benevolent surprise at this pallid, bony Laurent, whom she had not yet looked at.
Then, as the magistrate accompanied her, along with her niece and nephew-in-law, to the door, she pressed his hands with the remark:
"I shall soon see you again, I hope. You know you are always welcome at Doinville. And, thanks for coming; you are one of my last faithful ones."
Her smile became quite melancholy. But her niece, who had walked out stiffly the first, had only made a slight inclination of her head to the magistrate.