Pradès stammered:
"Then—you will hold me? Then—I am not free?"
M. Ginory did not reply. He gave an order that this Pradès should be guarded until the arrival of Dantin from Mazas.
In Mazas, in that walled prison, in the cell which had already made him ill, Jacques Dantin sat. This man, with the trooper's air, seemed almost to be in a state of collapse. When the guard came to his cell he drew himself up and endeavored to collect all his energy; and when the door was opened and he was called he appeared quite like himself. When he saw the prison wagon which had brought him to Mazas and now awaited to take him to the Palais de Justice he instinctively recoiled; then, recovering himself, he entered the narrow vehicle.
The idea, the sensation that he was so near all this life—yet so far—that he was going through these streets, filled with carriages, with men and women who were free, gave him a desperate, a nervous sense of irritation.
The air which they breathed, he breathed and felt fan his brow—but through a grating. They arrived at the Palais and Jacques Dantin recognized the staircases which he had previously mounted, that led to the Examining Magistrate's room. He entered the narrow room where M. Ginory awaited him. Dantin saluted the Magistrate with a gesture which, though courteous, seemed to have a little bravado in it; as a salutation with a sword before a duel. Then he glanced around, astonished to see, between two guards, a man whom he did not recognize.
M. Ginory studied them. If he knew this Pradès, who also curiously returned his look, Jacques Dantin was a great comedian, because no indication, not the slightest involuntary shudder, not the faintest trace of an expression of having seen him before, crossed his face. Even M. Ginory's keen eyes could detect nothing. He had asked that Bernardet be present at the meeting, and the little man's face, become serious, almost severe, was turned, with eager interrogation in its expression, toward Dantin. Bernardet also was unable to detect the faintest emotion which could be construed into an acknowledgment of ever having seen this young man before. Generally prisoners would, unconsciously, permit a gesture, a glance, a something, to escape them when they were brusquely confronted, unexpectedly, with some accomplice. This time not a muscle of Dantin's face moved, not an eyelash quivered.
M. Ginory motioned Jacques Dantin to a seat directly in front of him, where the light would fall full upon his face. Pointing out Pradès, he asked:
"Do you recognize this man?"
Dantin, after a second or two, replied: