“That is all that happened,” she added.  “Of all people I am least able to explain this occurrence.  In my soul and conscience I can only attribute it to the carelessness of one of the hunting party, who is afraid to confess.  Laws are so severe.  And it is so difficult to prove the truth.”

“So, mademoiselle, you do not think that your cousin was the author of this attempt?”

“No, sir, certainly not!  I am no longer delirious, and I should not have let myself be brought before you if I had felt that my mind was at all weak.”

“Apparently, then, you consider that a state of mental aberration was responsible for the revelations you made to Patience, to Mademoiselle Leblanc, your companion, and also, perhaps, to Abbe Aubert.”

“I made no revelations,” she replied emphatically, “either to the worthy Patience, the venerable abbe, or my servant Leblanc.  If the meaningless words we utter in a state of delirium are to be called ‘revelations,’ all the people who frighten us in our dreams would have to be condemned to death.  How could I have revealed facts of which I never had any knowledge?”

“But at the time you received the wound, and fell from your horse, you said:  ’Bernard, Bernard!  I should never have thought that you would kill me!’”

“I do not remember having said so; and, even if I did, I cannot conceive that any one would attach much importance to the impressions of a person who had suddenly been struck to the ground, and whose mind was annihilated, as it were.  All that I know is that Bernard de Mauprat would lay down his life for my father or myself; which does not make it very probable that he wanted to murder me.  Great God! what would be his object?”

In order to embarrass Edmee, the president now utilized all the arguments which could be drawn from Mademoiselle Leblanc’s evidence.  As a fact, they were calculated to cause her not a little confusion.  Edmee, who was at first somewhat astonished to find that the law was in possession of so many details which she believed were unknown to others, regained her courage and pride, however, when they suggested, in those brutally chaste terms which are used by the law in such a case, that she had been a victim of my violence at Roche-Mauprat.  Her spirit thoroughly roused, she proceeded to defend my character and her own honour, and declared that, considering how I had been brought up, I had behaved much more honourably than might have been expected.  But she still had to explain all her life from this point onward, the breaking off of her engagement with M. de la Marche, her frequent quarrels with myself, my sudden departure for America, her refusal of all offers of marriage.