M. Ginory seemed to wish to be a little ironical. But Dantin roughly said:
"M. le Juge, I have nothing to explain to you. I understand nothing, I know nothing. Or, rather, I know that in your error—an error which you will bitterly regret some day or other, I am sure—you have arrested me, shut me up in Mazas; but that which I can assure you of is, that I have had nothing, do you hear, nothing whatever to do with the murder of my friend, and I protest with all my powers against your processes."
"I comprehend that!" M. Ginory coldly replied. "Oh! I understand all the disagreeableness of being shut up within four walls. But then, it is very simple! In order to go out, one has only to give to the one who has a right to know the explanations which are asked. Do you still persist in your system? Do you still insist on keeping, I know not what secret, which you will not reveal to us?"
"I shall keep it, Monsieur, I have reflected," said Dantin. "Yes, I have reflected, and in the solitude to which you have forced me I have examined my conscience." He spoke with firmness, less violently than at the Palais de Justice, and Bernardet's penetrating little eyes never left his face; neither did the Magistrate's, nor the Chief's.
"I am persuaded," Dantin continued, "that this miserable mistake cannot last long, and you will recognize the truth. I shall go out, at least from here, without having abused a confidence which one has placed in me and which I intend to preserve."
"Yes," said M. Ginory, "perfectly, I know your system. You will hold to it. It is well. Now, whose portrait is that?"
"It is mine!"
"By whom do you think it was possible that it could have been sold in the bric-a-brac shop where it was found."
"I know nothing about it. Probably by the one who found it or stole it from M. Rovère's apartment, and who is probably, without the least doubt, his assassin."
"That seems very simple to you?"