Notwithstanding the humming noise of a great number of conversations carried on in a low tone, from one side of the passage to the other, prisoners and visitors succeeded, after some practice, in being able to converse among themselves--on the absolute condition not to allow themselves, for a moment, to be distracted or occupied with the conversation of their neighbors, which created a kind of secret in the midst of all this noisy exchange of words, each one being forced to hear, but not to listen, to a word of that which was spoken around him. Among the prisoners summoned to the visitors' room, and the furthest from the place where the guardian was seated, was one whom we still particularize. To the sad state of dejection he was in on his arrest had succeeded impudent assurance. Already the contagious and detestable influence of imprisonment _in common_ bore its fruits. Without doubt, if he had been immediately transferred to a solitary cell, this wretch, still under the blow of his first detection, the thought of his crimes constantly before him, alarmed at the punishment which awaited him, might have experienced, if not repentance, at least a salutary alarm, from which nothing might have distracted him. And who knows what effect may be produced on a criminal by an incessant, forced meditation on the crimes which he had committed, and their punishment? Far from this, thrown into the midst of a ruffianly crowd in whose eyes the least sign of repentance is cowardice, or, rather, _treachery_, which they dearly expiate, for, in their savage obduracy and in senseless distrust, they look upon as a spy every man (if there should be such a one) who, sad and mournful, regretting his fault, does not partake of their audacious thoughtlessness, and shudders at their contact. Thrown among the bandits, this man, knowing, for a long time and by tradition, the manners and ways of prisons, overcame his weakness, and wished to appear worthy of a name already celebrated in the annals of robbery and murder. For it had been to him, Nicholas Martial, that Ferrand had applied when the idea struck him to be rid of his housekeeper and Fleur-de-Marie at a blow.