Jacques Dantin looked fiercely at the registrar, who sat waiting, his pen over his ear, his elbows on the table, his chin on his hands.
"Then, oh, well! Then, here it is, I wish to tell you all—all. But to you—to you"——
"To me alone?"
"Yes," said Dantin, with the same fierce expression.
"My dear Favarel," the Magistrate began.
The registrar had already risen. He slowly bowed and went out.
"Now," said the Magistrate to Jacques Dantin, "you can speak."
The man still hesitated.
"Monsieur," he asked, "will any word said here be repeated, ought it or must it be repeated in a courtroom, at the Assizes, I know not where—anywhere before the public?"
"That depends," said M. Ginory. "But what you know you owe to justice, whether it be a revelation, an accusation or a confession, I ask it of you."