father and mother of two of the accused.  Such testimony is valueless; the law does not admit it against you, and commonsense rejects it when given in your favor.  If, on the other hand, you were to say you went to the forest to recover eleven hundred thousand francs in gold, you would send the accused to the galleys as robbers.  Judge, jury, audience, and the whole of France would believe that you took that gold from Gondreville, and abducted the senator that you might ransack his house.  The accusation as it now stands is not wholly clear, but tell the truth about the matter and it would become as plain as day; the jury would declare that the robbery explained the mysterious features,—­for in these days, you must remember, a royalist means a thief.  This very case is welcomed as a legitimate political vengeance.  The prisoners are now in danger of the death penalty; but that is not dishonoring under some circumstances.  Whereas, if they can be proved to have stolen money, which can never be made to seem excusable, you lose all benefit of whatever interest may attach to persons condemned to death for other crimes.  If, at the first, you had shown the hiding-places of the treasure, the plan of the forest, the tubes in which the gold was buried, and the gold itself, as an explanation of your day’s work, it is possible you might have been believed by an impartial magistrate, but as it is we must be silent.  God grant that none of the prisoners may reveal the truth and compromise the defence; if they do, we must rely on our cross-examinations.”

Laurence wrung her hands in despair and raised her eyes to heaven with a despondent look, for she saw at last in all its depths the gulf into which her cousins had fallen.  The marquis and the young lawyer agreed with the dreadful view of Bordin.  Old d’Hauteserre wept.

“Ah! why did they not listen to the Abbe Goujet and fly!” cried Madame d’Hauteserre, exasperated.

“If they could have escaped, and you prevented them,” said Bordin, “you have killed them yourselves.  Judgment by default gains time; time enables the innocent to clear themselves.  This is the most mysterious case I have ever known in my life, in the course of which I have certainly seen and known many strange things.”

“It is inexplicable to every one, even to us,” said Monsieur de Grandville.  “If the prisoners are innocent some one else has committed the crime.  Five persons do not come to a place as if by enchantment, obtain five horses shod precisely like those of the accused, imitate the appearance of some of them, and put Malin apparently underground for the sole purpose of casting suspicion on Michu and the four gentlemen.  The unknown guilty parties must have had some strong reason for wearing the skin, as it were, of five innocent men.  To discover them, even to get upon their traces, we need as much power as the government itself, as many agents and as many eyes as there are townships in a radius of fifty miles.”