"Monsieur Sauvresy," said he, "was the first husband of Madame de
Tremorel. My friend Courtois has omitted this fact."

"Oh!" said the mayor, in a wounded tone, "it seems to me that under
present circumstances--"

"Pardon me," interrupted the judge. "It is a detail such as may
well become valuable, though apparently foreign to the case, and
at the first view, insignificant."

"Hum!" grunted Papa Plantat. "Insignificant--foreign to it!"

His tone was so singular, his air so strange, that M. Domini was
struck by it.

"Do you share," he asked, "the opinion of the mayor regarding the
Tremorels?"

Plantat shrugged his shoulders.

"I haven't any opinions," he answered: "I live alone--see nobody;
don't disturb myself about anything. But--"

"It seems to me," said M. Courtois, "that nobody should be better
acquainted with people who were my friends than I myself."

"Then, you are telling the story clumsily," said M. Plantat, dryly.

The judge of instruction pressed him to explain himself. So M.