"And I helped him to put back in the safe the crushed, torn papers, without his asking me, or even himself questioning how they had come there, who had thrown them on the floor, or who had opened the safe. His face wore a slight smile, his gestures were automatic. Very weary, he at last said:
"'I am very tired. I would like to sleep.' I left him. He had stretched himself out and covered himself up. He closed his eyes and said:
"'It is so good to sleep!'
"I would see him to-morrow. I would try to again to-morrow awaken in him the desire which now seemed dulled. To-morrow his memory would have returned, and in some of his books where he had (like the Arabs who put their harvests in silos) placed his treasure he would find the fortune intended for his daughter.
"To-morrow! It is the word one repeats most often, and which one has the least right to use.
"I saw Rovère only after he was dead, with his throat cut—assassinated by whom? The man whom you have arrested has traveled much; he comes from a distance. Rovère was Consul at Buenos Ayres, and you know that he said to me the last day I saw him: 'I have known many rascals in my life!' Which seemed very simple when one thinks of the way he had lived.
"This is the truth, Monsieur. I ought to have told you sooner. I repeat that I had the weakness of wishing to keep the vow given to my dead friend. I had the name of a woman to betray, the name of a man, too; innocent of Rovère's fault. And then, again, it seemed to me that this truth ought to become known of itself. When I was arrested, a sort of foolish bravado urged me to see how far the absurdity of the charge could accumulate against me seeming proofs. I am a gambler. That was a part I played against you, or rather against the foolishness of destiny. I did not take a second thought that the error could be a lasting one. I had, moreover, only a word to say, but this word, I repeat, I hesitated to speak, and I willingly supported the consequence of this hesitation, even because this word was a name."
"That name," said M. Ginory, "I have not asked you."
"I refused it to the Magistrate," said Jacques Dantin, "but I confide it to the man of honor!"
"There is only a Magistrate here," M. Ginory replied, "but the legal inquiry has its secrets, as life has."