Then Bernardet, filled with passion for his profession, rather than vanity--this artist in a police sense; this lover of art for art's sake--rubbed his hands and silently applauded himself because he had insisted, and, as it were, compelled M. Ginory and the doctors to adopt his idea. He, the humble, unknown sub-officer, standing back and simply striving to do his duty, had influenced distinguished persons as powerful as magistrates and members of the Academy. They had obeyed his suggestion. The little Bernardet felt that he had done a glorious deed. He had experienced a strong conviction, which would not be denied. He had proved that what had been considered only a chimera was a reality. He had accomplished a seeming impossibility. He had evoked the dead man's secret even from the tomb. "And M. Ginory thinks that it will not help his candidature at the Academy? He will wear the green robe, and he will owe it to me. There are others who owe me something, too." With his faculty for believing in his dreams, of seeing his visions appear, realized and living--a faculty which, in such a man, seemed like the strange hallucination of a poet--Bernardet did not doubt for a moment the reality of this phantom which had appeared in the retina of the eye. It was nothing more, that eye removed by the surgeon's scalpel, than an avenging mirror. It accused, it overwhelmed! Jacques Dantin was found there in all the atrocity of his crime. "When I think, when I think that they did not wish to try the experiment. It is made now!" thought Bernardet. M. Ginory had strongly recommended that all that part of the examination should not be made public. Absolute silence was necessary. If the press could have obtained the slightest information, every detail of the experiment would have become public property, and the account would have been embellished and made as fantastic as possible. This would have been a deep mine for Edgar A. Poe, who would have worked that lode well and made the Parisians shudder. How the ink would have been mixed with Rovère's blood! It was well understood that if the suspected man would in the end confess his guilt, the result of the singular scientifically incredible experiment should be made known. But until then absolute silence. Every thing which had been said and done around the dissecting table at the Morgue, or in the Examining Magistrate's room, would remain a secret. But would Dantin confess? The next day after M. Ginory had put him under arrest Bernardet had gone to the Palais for news. He wished to consult his chief about the "Woman in Black," to ask him what he thought of the article which had been published in the paper by Paul Rodier. M. Leriche attached no great importance to it. "A reporter's information. Very vague. There is always a woman, _parbleu!_ in the life of every man. But did this one know Dantin? She seems to me simply an old, abandoned friend, and who came occasionally to ask aid of the old boy"----