With the suspicion of a smile, the latter set his mind at ease, like a man who knew his business. "But, anyhow," resumed M. de Lachesnaye more bitterly, "no one imagines, I suppose, that I am going to leave La Croix-de-Maufras to those Roubauds. A present like that to the daughter of a domestic! And why? for what reason? Besides, if it is proved that they were connected with the crime----" M. Denizet returned to the murder. "Do you really think so?" he inquired. "Well, if they knew what was in the will, their interest in the death of our poor father is manifest. Observe, moreover, that they were the last to speak to him. All this looks very suspicious." The magistrate, out of patience, disturbed in his new hypothesis, turned to Berthe. "And you, madam? Do you think your old comrade capable of such a crime?" Before answering, she looked at her husband. During their few months of married life, they had communicated to one another their ill-humour and want of feeling, which, moreover, had increased. They were becoming vitiated together. It was he who had set her on to Séverine; and, to such a point, that to get back the house, she would have had her old playmate arrested on the spot. "Well, sir," she ended by saying, "the person you speak about, displayed very bad tendencies as a child." "What were they? Do you accuse her of having acted improperly at Doinville?" "Oh! no, sir; my father would not have allowed her to remain." In this sentence the prudery of the respectable middle-class lady, flared up in virtuous indignation. "Only," she continued, "when one notices a disposition to be giddy, to be wild--briefly, many things that I should not have thought possible, appear to me positive at the present time." M. Denizet again showed signs of impatience. He was no longer following up this clue, and whoever continued to do so, became his adversary, and seemed to him to be putting the certainty of his intelligence in doubt.