Stenson sighed, and replied laconically:
“I am an honest man, M. Goefle!”
“And yet,” answered the lawyer, with emphasis, “your conscience—a pious and sensitive one—is reproaching you for something!”
“Something?” repeated Stenson, with an air mild and yet firm, as much as to say, “Let me hear what you can allege against me!”
“You have, at least, to fear the vengeance of the baron?”
“No,” answered Stenson, with sudden decision of tone, “I know what the doctor told me.”
“Has the doctor given him up? Is his complaint so much advanced as that? I saw him this morning. He looked to me as if he might last a good while.”
“For months,” replied Stenson, “and I may last for years. I consulted the doctor yesterday; I do so every year.”
“You are waiting for his death, then, to reveal something of importance. But you are aware that he is said to be capable of having people whom he is afraid of assassinated. What do you think on that subject?”
Stenson answered by a look of surprise, which M. Goefle thought unquestionably assumed, for it was succeeded immediately by an expression of repressed anxiety. Stenson knew how to restrain himself, but not how to dissimulate.