"Now that I know the Tremorels as if I had lived with them
intimately, let us proceed to the actual facts."

The brilliant eye of M. Plantat immediately grew dim; he opened his
lips as if to speak; but kept his peace. The doctor alone, who had
not ceased to study the old justice of the peace, remarked the sudden
change of his features.

"It only remains," said M. Domini, "to know how the new couple lived."

M. Courtois thought it due to his dignity to anticipate M. Plantat.

"You ask how the new couple lived," said he hastily; "they lived in
perfect concord; nobody knows better about it than I, who was most
intimate with them. The memory of poor Sauvresy was a bond of
happiness between them; if they liked me so well, it was because I
often talked of him. Never a cloud, never a cross word. Hector
--I called him so, familiarly, this poor, dear count--gave his
wife the tender attentions of a lover; those delicate cares, which
I fear most married people soon dispense with."

"And the countess?" asked M. Plantat, in a tone too marked not to
be ironical.

"Bertha?" replied the worthy mayor--"she permitted me to call her
thus, paternally--I have cited her many and many a time as an
example and model, to Madame Courtois. She was worthy of Hector
and of Sauvresy, the two most worthy men I have ever met!"

Then, perceiving that his enthusiasm somewhat surprised his hearers,