"
"About--monsieur le juge?" asked M. Fille rather stiffly. "For
instance--about what?"
"For instance, about a man--not Jean Jacques."
The lips of the Clerk of the Court tightened. "Never at any time--till
now, monsieur le juge."
"Ah--till now!"
The Clerk of the Court blushed. What he was about to say was difficult,
but he alone of all the world guessed at the tragedy which was hovering
over Jean Jacques' home. By chance he had seen something on an afternoon
of three days before, and he had fled from it as a child would fly from a
demon. He was a purist at law, but he was a purist in life also, and not
because the flush of youth had gone and his feet were on the path which
leads into the autumn of a man's days. The thing he had seen had been
terribly on his mind, and he had felt that his own judgment was not
sufficient for the situation, that he ought to tell someone.
The Cure was the only person who had come to his mind when he became
troubled to the point of actual mental agony. But the new curb, M. Savry,
was not like the Old Cure, and, besides, was it not stepping between the
woman and her confessional? Yet he felt that something ought to be done.
It never occurred to him to speak to Jean Jacques. That would have seemed
so brutal to the woman. It came to him to speak to Carmen, but he knew
that he dared not do so.
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