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Although before her marriage Phillis had only crossed Saniel's path, she knew him well enough to know that he was entirely given up to work, without thought of anything else, and she believed that after marriage he would continue to work in the same way, not caring for amusements or society. She was correct about his work, but not so regarding society.
"When one takes plenty of time, one finds a needle in a bundle of hay," Florentin said. "You ask me what I heard, and I tell you. But I do not depend entirely on that. As I passed near the Rue Louis-le-Grand, I went to Doctor Saniel's; it being his office hour I hoped to find him." "You told him the situation?" Florentin exclaimed.
But this idea did not enter his mind, and, to save himself from an immediate danger, he threw himself into another which, although uncertain, was not less grave. Little by little Phillis recovered herself, and the hope that Madame Dammauville put in her heart, momentarily crushed by Saniel's remarks, sprang up again. "Is it not possible Madame Dammauville really saw what she relates?"
At Saniel's words, Madame Cormier's hands began to tremble, and the trembling increased. "Is it possible?" she murmured, beginning to cry. "So great a happiness for my daughter! Such an honor for us, for us, for us!" "I love her." "Forgive me if happiness makes me forget the conventionalities, but I lose my head. We are so unhappy that our souls are weak against joy.
He defended himself badly, or at least indifferently, like a man who gives up because he knows beforehand that whatever he may say will be useless. Until Saniel's deposition the witnesses who testified were insignificant enough, and revealed nothing that was not already known; only Valerius, with his pretensions to a professional secret, which he developed slowly, amused the audience.
He had also said that Florentin could not be arrested, basing the accusation on the torn button, and he had said that certainly an 'ordonnance de non-lieu' would be given by the judge; but they wished to remember neither the one nor the other. Things had reached this state, when one Saturday evening Phillis arrived at Saniel's, radiant. As soon as the door opened she exclaimed: "He is saved!"
The button which the police were so proud to discover, did not belong to him. This new track on which they were about to enter did not lead to him. On Tuesday, a little before five o'clock, as she had promised, Phillis rang at Saniel's door, and he left his laboratory where he was at work, to let her in. She threw herself on his neck. "Well?" she asked, in a trembling voice.
"No; that is to say, yes. There was one who asked me if Monsieur Caffie was at home; but I know him well; that is why I answered No." "And who is he?" "One of Monsieur Caffies old clerks." "His name?" "Monsieur Florentin Monsieur Florentin Cormier." Saniel's hand was arrested at this name, but he did not raise his head. "At what hour did he come?" asked the commissioner.
She helped him to each dish, poured out his wine, leaving her chair occasionally to put a piece of wood on the fire, and such shoutings and laughter had never been heard before in that office. However, she noticed that, little by little, Saniel's face, that relaxed one moment, was the next clouded by the preoccupation and bitterness that she had tried hard to chase away.
The effect of Saniel's deposition was destroyed, and that one produced by the testimony of Madame Dammauville's maids, far less strong, was also destroyed when the advocate-general proved that this gossip turned against the accused. She had seen, it was said, a man with long hair and curled beard, draw the curtains; very well! Does this description apply to the accused?
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