"Is it possible that any former inmate of this wretched prison can have amused his solitude by making a pet of such a creature?
and if there were such a man, where is he now ?" Henceforward, sleeping or waking, whenever Monsieur the Viscount lay down upon his pallet, the toad crawled up on to the stone, and kept watch over him with shining lustrous eyes; but whenever there was a sound of the key grating in the lock, and the gaoler coming his rounds, away crept the toad, and was quickly lost in the dark corners of the room.

When the man was gone, it returned to its place, and Monsieur the Viscount would talk to it, as he lay on his pallet.
"Ah! Monsieur Crapaud," he would say, with mournful pleasantry, "without doubt you have had a master and a kind one; but, tell me, who was he, and where is he now?
Was he old or young, and was it in the last stage of maddening loneliness that he made friends with such a creature as you ?" Monsieur Crapaud looked very intelligent, but he made no reply, and Monsieur the Viscount had recourse to Antoine.
"Who was in this cell before me ?" he asked at the gaoler's next visit.
Antoine's face clouded.

"Monsieur le Cure had this room.

My orders were that he was to be imprisoned in secret.'" Monsieur le Cure had this room.

There was a revelation in those words.
It was all explained now.