"Then it is understood. Madelon will tell no lies about me?"
"I say nothing unless I am arrested. If that happens, I tell what I know."
"But you know nothing," exploded Leroux.
"The shoe-buckles," said Madelon.
Leroux stared at her silently for a full minute. Then, with an angrily-muttered oath, he flung out of the room, shutting the door behind him with violence.
Jean Jacques stood scratching his head.
"Eh, Madelon," he said, "you faced him grandly. But when did he get those shoe-buckles, and how did you know about them?"
Madelon began to laugh faintly, with catching breath.
"Oh, thou great stupid," she panted; "did'st thou not understand? There never, never, never were any buckles at all, but he thought they were there in his garden, and it did just as well," and with that she buried her face in the pillow and broke into passionate weeping.
Mathieu Leroux held his tongue about his daughter and walked softly for a day or two. Also he took much exercise in his garden, where he dug to the depth of three feet, but without finding anything.