The case was taken to the assizes at the court of Bourges, and proceedings began in a very few days.

You can imagine the gloomy despair with which I was filled.  Edmee’s condition was growing more and more serious; her mind was completely unhinged.  I felt no anxiety as to the result of the trial; I never imagined it was possible to convict me of a crime I had not committed; but what were honour and life to me, if Edmee were never to regain the power of recognising my innocence?  I looked upon her as already dead, and as having cursed me dying!  So I was inflexibly resolved to kill myself immediately after receiving my sentence, whatever it might be.  Until then I felt that it was my duty to live, and to do what might be necessary for the triumph of truth; but I was plunged in such a state of stupor that I did not even think of ascertaining what was to be done.  Had it not been for the cleverness and zeal of my counsel, and the sublime devotion of Marcasse, my listlessness would have left me to the most terrible fate.

Marcasse spent all his time in expeditions on my behalf.  In the evening he would come and throw himself on a bundle of straw at the foot of my trunkle bed, and, after giving me news of Edmee and the chevalier, whom he went to see every day, he would tell me the results of his proceedings.  I used to grasp his hand affectionately; but I was generally so absorbed by the news he had just given me of Edmee, that I never heard anything further.

This prison of La Chatre had formerly been the stronghold of the Elevains of Lombaud, the seigneurs of the province.  Nothing was left of it but a formidable square tower at the top of a ravine where the Indre forms a narrow, winding valley, rich with the most beautiful vegetation.  The weather was magnificent.  My room, situated at the top of the tower, received the rays of the rising sun, which cast the long, thin shadows of a triple row of poplars as far as the eye could see.  Never did landscape more smiling, fresh, and pastoral offer itself to the eyes of a prisoner.  But how could I find pleasure in it?  Words of death and contumely came to me in every breeze that blew through the wall-flowers growing in the crannies.  Every rustic sound, every tune on the pipe that rose to my room, seemed to contain an insult or to proclaim profound contempt for my sorrow.  There was nothing, even to the bleating of the flocks, which did not appear to me an expression of neglect or indifference.

For some time Marcasse had had one fixed idea, namely, that Edmee had been shot by John Mauprat.  It was possible; but as there was no evidence to support the conjecture, I at once ordered him not to make known his suspicions.  It was not for me to clear myself at the expense of others.  Although John Mauprat was capable of anything, it was possible that he had never thought of committing this crime; and as I had not heard him spoken of for more than six weeks, it