But this was only a passing thought. The man’s upright conscience revolted against it, and made its powerful voice heard.
“Is anything,” it cried, “more monstrous than the association of these two ideas,—hatred and justice? Can a magistrate, without despising himself more than he despises the vile beings he condemns, recollect that a criminal, whose fate is in his hands, has been his enemy? Has an investigating magistrate the right to make use of his exceptional powers in dealing with a prisoner; so long as he harbours the least resentment against him?”
M. Daburon repeated to himself what he had so frequently thought during the year, when commencing a fresh investigation: “And I also, I almost stained myself with a vile murder!”
And now it was his duty to cause to be arrested, to interr
