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Rh vinced that the moment had come for pushing the examination more strongly.

"So, Widow Chupin," he began, "you affirm that you did not remain for a single moment with the people who came to your saloon for refreshments?"

"Not a moment."

"They entered and gave their order, you waited on them, and you left them at once?"

"Yes, my good sir."

"It seems to me impossible that you should not have caught some words of their conversation. What were they talking about?"

"I am not in the habit of watching and playing the spy over my customers."

"Did you not hear something?"

"Nothing."

The judge shrugged his shoulders with an air of commiseration.

"In other words," he remarked, "you refuse to iunform the justice"

"Oh, my good sir!"

"Allow me to finish. All these improbable stories about leaving the room, and mending your son's clothes in your chamber, you have invented, so that you could say to me: 'I have seen nothing; I have heard nothing; I know nothing.' If such is the system of defence you have adopted, I warn you that it will be impossible for you to sustain it, and that it will not be admitted by any tribunal."

"It is not a system of defence; it is the truth."

M. Segmuller seemed to reflect for a moment; then, suddenly, he said:

"Then you have nothing to tell me about this miserable assassin?"