"Come on!--I need a walk."

"Are things getting less entangled?" I asked.

"Not a bit of it!" he said, "more entangled than ever! It's true,
I have an idea--"

"What's that?" I asked.

"I can't tell you what it is just at present--it's an idea
involving the life or death of two persons at least."

"Do you think there were accomplices?"

"I don't think it--"

We fell into silence. Presently he went on:

"It was a bit of luck, our falling in with that examining magistrate
and his Registrar, eh? What did I tell you about that revolver?"
His head was bent down, he had his hands in his pockets, and he was
whistling. After a while I heard him murmur:

"Poor woman!"

"Is it Mademoiselle Stangerson you are pitying?"

"Yes; she's a noble woman and worthy of being pitied!--a woman of
a great, a very great character--I imagine--I imagine."