Balthazar bowed in submission; but he seemed to think any other reply unnecessary.  The fingers of Sigismund writhed on the hilt of his sword, and a groan, which the young man well knew had been wrested from the bosom of his mother, came from the women.

“The remark of the worthy and honorable bailiff is just,” resumed the Valaisan; “all that is of the state is for the good of the state, and all that is for the comfort and security of man is honorable.  Be not ashamed, therefore, of thy office, Balthazar, which, being necessary, is not to be idly condemned; but answer faithfully and with truth to the questions I am about to put.—­Thou hast a daughter?”

“In that much, at least, have I been blessed!”

The energy with which he spoke caused a sudden movement in the judges.  They looked at each other in surprise, for it was apparent they did not expect these touches of human feeling in a man who lived, as it were, in constant warfare with his fellow-creatures.

“Thou hast reason,” returned the chatelain, recovering his gravity; “for she is said to be both dutiful and comely.  Thou wert about to marry this daughter?”

Balthazar acknowledged the truth of this by another inclination.

“Didst thou ever know a Vevaisan of the name of Jacques Colis?”

“Mein Herr, I did.  He was to have become my son.”

The chatelain was again surprised; for the steadiness of the reply denoted innocence, and he studied the countenance of the prisoner intently.  He found apparent frankness where he had expected to meet with subterfuge, and, like all who have great acquaintance with crime, his distrust increased.  The simplicity of one who really had nothing to conceal, unlike that appearance of firmness, which is assumed to affect innocence, set his shrewdness at fault, though familiar with most of he expedients of the guilty.

“This Jacques Colis was to have wived thy daughter?” continued the chatelain, growing more wary as he thought he detected greater evidence of art in the accused.

“It was so understood between us.”

“Did he love thy child?”

The muscles of Balthazar’s mouth played convulsively, the twitching of the lip seeming to threaten a loss of self-command.

“Mein Herr, I believed it.”

“Yet he refused to fulfil the engagement?”

“He did.”

Even Marguerite was alarmed at the deep emphasis with which this answer was given, and, for the first time in her life, she trembled lest the accumulating load of obloquy had indeed been too strong for her husband’s principles.

“Thou felt anger at his conduct, and at the public manner in which he disgraced thee and thine?”

“Herr Chatelain, I am human.  When Jacques Colis repudiated my daughter, he bruised a tender plant in the girl, and he caused bitterness in a father’s heart.”

“Thou hast received instruction superior to thy condition, Balthazar!”