“Sir, do you think I am a man to be turned aside from my duty by
considerations of friendship or personal interest?”
“I said nothing of the kind.”
“Did you not see just now how I carried on the inquiry? Did you see me
start when Cocoleu first mentioned M. de Boiscoran’s name? If he had
denounced any one else, I should probably have let the matter rest
there. But precisely because M. de Boiscoran is a friend of mine,
and because I have great expectations from him, I have insisted and
persisted, and I do so still.”
The commonwealth attorney shrugged his shoulders.
“That is it exactly,” he said. “Because M. de Boiscoran is a friend of
yours, you are afraid of being accused of weakness; and you are going
to be hard, pitiless, unjust even, against him. Because you had great
expectations from him, you will insist upon finding him guilty. And you
call yourself impartial?”