Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/373

 of the income from the three bonds and to find out whether they had been sold. While the justice of the peace was at work in Paris, the public prosecutor wrote politely to Madame Minoret, asking her to call at his office. Zélie, full of anxiety about her son’s duel, dressed, ordered the horses to be put to the carriage and came in fiocchi to Fontainebleau. The prosecutor’s plan was simple and formidable. By separating the wife from the husband, he intended, through the terror inspired by justice, to learn the truth. Zélie found the magistrate in his study, and was completely crushed by these unceremonious words.

“Madame, I do not believe you to be an accomplice in a theft that has been made in the Minoret inheritance, and which justice is tracking at this present moment; but you can save your husband from the Assize Court by the entire confession of what you know about it. Moreover, the punishment your husband will incur is not the only thing to be feared; your son’s removal and ruin have to be avoided. In a few minutes, it will be too late, the police are in the saddle and the commitment will start for Nemours.”

Zélie nearly fainted. When she had regained her senses, she confessed all. After having easily shown this woman that she was an accomplice, the magistrate told her, that in order to save her husband and her son, he would proceed with caution.

“You have had to do with the man and not with the magistrate,” he said. “There has been no