Greatly perturbed, shocked, astonished as I was, my mind refused to admit, even for a moment, the probability, hardly the possibility, of Eugenie de Tourville’s guilt.  The reckless malignancy of spirit evinced by so atrocious an act dwelt not, I was sure, within that beauteous temple.  The motives alleged to have actuated her—­fear of a criminal charge, admitted to be absurd, and desire to rid herself of an obstacle to her marriage with Arthur Rushton—­seemed to me altogether strained and inapplicable.  The desperation of unreasoning hate could alone have prompted such a deed; for detection was inevitable, had, in truth, been courted rather than attempted to be avoided.

My reasoning made no change in the conclusions of Mr. Twyte the attorney for the prosecution, and I hastened home to administer such consolation to Arthur Rushton as might consist in the assurance of my firm conviction that his beloved mother’s life had not been wilfully taken away by Eugenie de Tourville.  I found him still painfully agitated; and the medical attendant told me it was feared by Dr. ——­ that brain fever would supervene if the utmost care was not taken to keep him as quiet and composed as, under the circumstances, was possible.  I was, however, permitted a few minutes’ conversation with him; and my reasoning, or, more correctly, my confidently-expressed belief—­for his mind seemed incapable of following my argument, which it indeed grasped faintly at, but slipped from, as it were, in an instant—­appeared to relieve him wonderfully.  I also promised him that no legal or pecuniary assistance should be wanting in the endeavor to clear Mademoiselle de Tourville of the dreadful imputation preferred against her.  I then left him.  The anticipation of the physician was unfortunately realized:  the next morning he was in a raging fever, and his life, I was informed, was in very imminent danger.

It was a distracting time; but I determinedly, and with much self-effort, kept down the nervous agitation which might have otherwise rendered me incapable of fulfilling the duties I had undertaken to perform.  By eleven o’clock in the forenoon I had secured the active and zealous services of Mr. White, one of the most celebrated of the criminal attorneys of that day.  By application in the proper quarter, we obtained immediate access to the prisoner, who was temporarily confined in a separate room in the Red-Lion Square Lock-up House.  Mademoiselle de Tourville, although exceedingly pale, agitated, and nervous, still looked as lustrously pure, as radiantly innocent of evil thought or deed, as on the day that I first beheld her.  The practiced eye of the attorney scanned her closely.  “As innocent of this charge,” he whispered, “as you or I.”  I tendered my services to the unfortunate young lady with an earnestness of manner which testified more than any words could have done how entirely my thoughts acquitted her of offence.  Her looks thanked me; and when I hinted at the promise exacted of me by Arthur Rushton, a bright blush for an instant mantled the pale marble of her cheeks and forehead, indicating with the tears, which suddenly filled and trembled in her beautiful eyes, a higher sentiment, I thought, than mere gratitude.  She gave us her unreserved confidence; by which, after careful sifting, we obtained only the following by no means entirely satisfactory results:—­