Stenson remained perfectly quiet, as if he had not heard. M. Goefle persisted:
“Who is this Manasses who is dead?”
The same silence upon Stenson’s part, while his impenetrable eyes, fixed on M. Goefle, seemed to say, “If you know, why do you ask?”
“And the other,” the advocate went on, “what other was he speaking of?”
“Were you listening, M. Goefle?” questioned the old man in his turn, with a tone of extreme deference, but in which there was a distinct accent of disapproval.
The advocate felt some embarrassment, but his consciousness of his good intentions reassured him.
“Are you surprised, M. Stenson,” he asked, after a pause, “that when I suddenly heard an unknown voice speaking to you in a threatening tone, I should have approached to help you, if necessary?”
Stenson held out to M. Goefle his aged, wrinkled hand, which had become cold once more.
His lips moved for some moments without uttering a sound—a natural action with a person unaccustomed to talking, and struggling to overcome his habitual reserve; but he hesitated so long, that M. Goefle, to encourage him, said:
“My dear M. Stenson, there is a secret oppressing you, and you are in serious danger in consequence.”