yesterday there was a ray of hope; what complicates the matter is, she has
a brain fever."

"Could you go into the house, and see where the deed was committed?"

"Oh! by no means! I could go no further than the gate, and the porter did
not seem disposed to walk much, not as ..."

"Here comes master," cried the boy, entering the office with the carcass.
Immediately the young men seated themselves at their respective desks, over
which they bent, moving their pens, while the boy deposited for a moment
the turkey skeleton in a box filled with law papers.

Jacques Ferrand appeared.

Taking off his old silk cap, his red hair, mixed with gray, fell in
disorder from each side of his temples; some of the veins on his forehead
seemed injected with blood, while his flat face and hollow cheeks were of a
livid paleness. The expression of his eyes could not be seen, concealed as
they were by his large green spectacles; but the visible alteration of his
features announced a consuming passion.

He crossed the office slowly, without saying a word to his clerks, without
appearing to notice their presence, entered the room of the head clerk,
walked through it, as well as his own cabinet, and descended immediately by
the little staircase which led to the court. Jacques Ferrand having left
behind him all the doors open, the clerks could, with good reason, be
astonished at the extraordinary motions of their master, who came up one
staircase and descended another, without stopping in any of the chambers,
which he had traversed mechanically.