But the Bourgeois might be killed in a sudden
fray, when blood was up and swords drawn, when no one, as De Pean
remarked, would be able to find an i undotted or a t uncrossed in a
fair record of the transaction, which would impose upon the most
critical judge as an honorable and justifiable act of self-defence.
This was Cadet's real intent, and perhaps Bigot's, but the
Intendant's thoughts lay at unfathomable depths, and were not to be
discovered by any traces upon the surface. No divining-rod could
tell where the secret spring lay hid which ran under Bigot's
motives.
Not so De Pean. He meditated treachery, and it were hard to say
whether it was unnoted by the penetrating eye of Bigot. The
Intendant, however, did not interfere farther, either by word or
sign, but left De Pean to accomplish in his own way the bloody
object they all had in view, namely, the death of the Bourgeois and
the break-up of the Honnetes Gens. De Pean, while resolving to make
Le Gardeur the tool of his wickedness, did not dare to take him into
his confidence.
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