Old Tabaret remained some minutes without answering; he was estimating the probabilities resulting from M. de Commarin’s letters.
“For my own part,” said he at length, “I believe on my conscience that you are not Madame Gerdy’s son.”
“And you are right!” answered the advocate forcibly. “You will easily believe, will you not, that I went and saw Claudine. She loved me, this poor woman who had given me her milk, she suffered from the knowledge of the injustice that had been done me. Must I say it, her complicity in the matter weighed upon her conscience; it was a remorse too great for her old age. I saw her, I interrogated her, and she told me all. The count’s scheme, simply and yet ingeniously conceived, succeeded without any effort. Three days after my birth, the crime was committed, and
