Monsieur Fuselier looked at the card: he started!
"Elizabeth Dollon!... Ah ... Good Heavens, what am I to say to this poor girl? How am I to tell her?"
Just then the door was pushed violently open, and a girl, in tears, rushed towards him:
"Monsieur, where is my brother?"
"But, mademoiselle!..."
Whilst the magistrate mechanically asked his distracted visitor to sit down, Jérôme Fandor discreetly withdrew to the further side of the room; he was anxious that the magistrate should forget his presence, so that he might be a witness of what promised to be a most exciting interview.
"Pray control yourself, mademoiselle," begged the magistrate. "Your brother has perhaps been arrested through a mistake...."
"Oh, monsieur, I am sure of it, but it is frightful!"
"Mademoiselle, the dreadful thing would be that he was guilty."
"But they have not set him at liberty yet? He has not been able to clear himself?"