“I do not think so,” replied Malin; “I believe those gentlemen to be incapable of attempting to get possession of such papers by violence.  They had only to ask me for them to obtain them.”

“You burned certain papers in the park, did you not?” said Monsieur de Gondreville, abruptly.

Malin looked at Grevin.  After exchanging a rapid glance with the notary, which Bordin intercepted, he replied that he had not burned any papers.  The public prosecutor having asked him to describe the ambush to which he had so nearly fallen a victim two years earlier, the senator replied that he had seen Michu watching him from the fork of a tree.  This answer, which agreed with Grevin’s testimony, produced a great impression.

The four gentlemen remained impassible during the examination of their enemy, who seemed determined to overwhelm them with generosity.  Laurence suffered horrible agony.  From time to time the Marquis de Chargeboeuf held her by the arm, fearing she might dart forward to the rescue.  The Comte de Gondreville retired from the courtroom and as he did so he bowed to the four gentlemen, who did not return the salutation.  This trifling matter made the jury indignant.

“They are lost now,” whispered Bordin to the Marquis de Chargeboeuf.

“Alas, yes! and always through the nobility of their sentiments,” replied the marquis.

“My task is now only too easy, gentlemen,” said the prosecutor, rising to address the jury.

He explained the use of the cement by the necessity of securing an iron frame on which to fasten a padlock which held the iron bar with which the gate of the cavern was closed; a description of which was given in the proces-verbal made that morning by Pigoult.  He put the falsehoods of the accused into the strongest light, and pulverized the arguments of the defence with the new evidence so miraculously obtained.  In 1806 France was still too near the Supreme Being of 1793 to talk about divine justice; he therefore spared the jury all reference to the intervention of heaven; but he said that earthly justice would be on the watch for the mysterious accomplices who had set the senator at liberty, and he sat down, confidently awaiting the verdict.

The jury believed there was a mystery, but they were all persuaded that it came from the prisoners, who were probably concealing some matter of a private interest of great importance to them.

Monsieur de Grandville, to whom a plot or machination of some kind was quite evident, rose; but he seemed discouraged,—­less, however, by the new evidence than by the manifest opinion of the jury.  He surpassed, if anything, his speech of the previous evening; his argument was more compact and logical; but he felt his fervor repelled by the coldness of the jury; he spoke ineffectually, and he knew it,—­a chilling situation for an advocate.  He called attention to the fact that the release of the senator,