Perhaps the harm had been done by that unfinished coffee, or by that bread whose crumbs lay here and there, or by those cutlets, a bone of which remained?
Then as for the third time he passed by, again glancing, his eyes fell upon the basket of figs, and at once he stopped, as if beneath the shock of a revelation.

An idea seized upon him and mastered him, without any plan, however, occurring to him by which he might change his sudden suspicion into certainty.

For a moment he remained puzzled with his eyes fixed upon the basket.

Then he took a fig and examined it, but, noticing nothing strange, was about to put it back when Tata, the parrot, who was very fond of figs, raised a strident cry.

And this was like a ray of light; the means of changing suspicion into certainty was found.
Slowly, with grave air and gloomy visage, the Cardinal carried the fig to the parrot and gave it to her without hesitation or regret.