MARTHE INVEIGLED

While the masters of Cinq-Cygne were waiting at Troyes for the opening of the trial before the Criminal court and vainly soliciting permission to see the prisoners, an event of the utmost importance had taken place at the chateau.

Marthe returned to Cinq-Cygne as soon as she had given her testimony before the indicting jury.  This testimony was so insignificant that it was not thought necessary to summon her before the Criminal court.  Like all persons of extreme sensibility, the poor woman sat silent in the salon, where she kept company with Mademoiselle Goujet, in a pitiable state of stupefaction.  To her, as to the abbe, and indeed to all others who did not know how the accused had been employed on that day, their innocence seemed doubtful.  There were moments when Marthe believed that Michu and his masters and Laurence had executed vengeance on the senator.  The unhappy woman now knew Michu’s devotion well enough to be certain that he was the one who would be most in danger, not only because of his antecedents, but because of the part he was sure to have taken in the execution of the scheme.

The Abbe Goujet and his sister and Marthe were bewildered among the possibilities to which this opinion gave rise; and yet, in the process of thinking them over, their minds insensibly took hold of them in a certain way.  The absolute doubt which Descartes demands can no more exist in the brain of a man than a vacuum can exist in nature, and the mental operation required to produce it would, like the effect of a pneumatic machine, be exceptional and anomalous.  Whatever a case may be, the mind believes in something.  Now Marthe was so afraid that the accused were guilty that her fear became equivalent to belief; and this condition of her mind proved fatal to her.

Five days after the arrests, just as she was in the act of going to bed about ten o’clock at night, she was called from the courtyard by her mother, who had come from the farm on foot.

“A laboring man from Troyes wants to speak to you; he is sent by Michu, and is waiting in the covered way,” she said to Marthe.

They passed through the breach so as to take the shortest path.  In the darkness it was impossible for Marthe to distinguish anything more than the form of a person which loomed through the shadows.

“Speak, madame; so that I may be certain you are really Madame Michu,” said the person, in a rather anxious voice.

“I am Madame Michu,” said Marthe; “what do you want of me?”

“Very good,” said the unknown, “give me your hand; do not fear me.  I come,” he added, leaning towards her and speaking low, “from Michu with a note for you.  I am employed at the prison, and if my superiors discover my absence we shall all be lost.  Trust me; your good father placed me where I am.  For that reason Michu counted on my helping him.”

He put the letter into Marthe’s hand and disappeared toward the forest without waiting for an answer.  Marthe trembled at the thought that she was now to hear the secret of the mystery.  She ran to the farm with her mother and shut herself up to read the following letter:—­