"You ask how the new couple lived," said he hastily; "they lived in
perfect concord; nobody knows better about it than I, who was most
intimate with them. The memory of poor Sauvresy was a bond of happiness
between them; if they liked me so well, it was because I often talked of
him. Never a cloud, never a cross word. Hector--I called him so,
familiarly, this poor, dear count--gave his wife the tender attentions
of a lover; those delicate cares, which I fear most married people soon
dispense with."
"And the countess?" asked M. Plantat, in a tone too marked not to be
ironical.
"Bertha?" replied the worthy mayor--"she permitted me to call her thus,
paternally--I have cited her many and many a time as an example and
model, to Madame Courtois. She was worthy of Hector and of Sauvresy, the
two most worthy men I have ever met!"
Then, perceiving that his enthusiasm somewhat surprised his hearers, he
added, more softly:
"I have my reasons for expressing myself thus; and I do not hesitate to
do so before men whose profession and character will justify my
discretion. Sauvresy, when living, did me a great service--when I was
forced to take the mayoralty. As for Hector, I knew well that he had
departed--from the dissipations of his youth, and thought I discerned
that he was not indifferent to my eldest daughter, Laurence; and I
dreamed of a marriage all the more proper, as, if the Count Hector had a
great name, I would give to my daughter a dowry large enough to gild any
escutcheon. Only events modified my projects."
The mayor would have gone on singing the praises of the Tremorels, and
his own family, if the judge of instruction had not interposed.
"Here I am fixed," he commenced, "now, it seems to me--"
He was interrupted by a loud noise in the vestibule. It seemed like a
struggle, and cries and shouts reached the drawing-room. Everybody rose.
"I know what it is," said the mayor, "only too well. They have just
found the body of the Count de Tremorel."