Daburon with a touch of irony. "That is all very fine,
sir, and worthy of the days of chivalry!"
"I am not the hero that you suppose, sir," replied the prisoner simply.
"If I told you that I did not count on Claire, I should be telling a
falsehood. I was waiting for her. I knew that, on learning of my arrest,
she would brave everything to save me. But her friends might have hid it
from her; and that was what I feared. In that event, I do not think,
so far as one can answer for oneself, that I should have mentioned her
name."
There was no appearance of bravado. What Albert said, he thought and
felt. M. Daburon regretted his irony.
"Sir," he said kindly, "you must return to your prison. I cannot release
you yet; but you will be no longer in solitary confinement. You will be
treated with every attention due to a prisoner whose innocence appears
probable."
Albert bowed, and thanked him; and was then removed.
"We are now ready for Gevrol," said the magistrate to his clerk.
The chief of detectives was absent: he had been sent for from the
Prefecture of Police; but his witness, the man with the earrings, was
waiting in the passage.
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