He paused, and after a moment, as Cocoleu kept silent, he asked,--

"But, now I think of it, whom has this poor fellow talked to?"

Not one of the peasants could tell. They inquired; but no answer came.
Perhaps Cocoleu had never said what he was reported to have said.

"The fact is," said one of the tenants at Valpinson, "that the poor
devil, so to say, never sleeps, and that he is roaming about all night
around the house and the farm buildings."

This was a new light for M. Galpin; suddenly changing the form of his
interrogatory, he asked Cocoleu,--

"Where did you spend the night?"

"In--in--the--court--yard."

"Were you asleep when the fire broke out?"

"No."

"Did you see it commence?"

"Yes."

"How did it commence?"

The idiot looked fixedly at the Countess Claudieuse with the timid and