After saying these words in an animated, ironical tone, Edmee burst into tears.  This nervous sensibility which brought to the front all the qualities of her soul and mind, tenderness, courage, delicacy, pride, modesty, gave her face at the same time an expression so varied, so winning in all its moods, that the grave, sombre assembly of judges let fall the brazen cuirass of impassive integrity and the leaden cope of hypocritical virtue.  If Edmee had not triumphantly defended me by her confession, she had at least roused the greatest interest in my favour.  A man who is loved by a beautiful woman carries with him a talisman that makes him invulnerable; all feel that his life is of greater value than other lives.

Edmee still had to submit to many questions; she set in their proper light the facts which had been misrepresented by Mademoiselle Leblanc.  True, she spared me considerably; but with admirable skill she managed to elude certain questions, and so escaped the necessity of either lying or condemning me.  She generously took upon herself the blame for all my offences, and pretended that, if we had had various quarrels, it was because she herself took a secret pleasure in them; because they revealed the depth of my love; that she had let me go to America to put my virtue to the proof, thinking that the campaign would not last more than a year, as was then supposed; that afterwards she had considered me in honour bound to submit to the indefinite prolongation, but that she had suffered more than myself from my absence; finally, she quite remembered the letter which had been found upon her, and, taking it up, she gave the mutilated passages with astonishing accuracy, and at the same time called the clerk to follow as she deciphered the words which were half obliterated.

“This letter was so far from being a threatening letter,” she said, “and the impression it left on me was so far from filling me with fear or aversion, that it was found on my heart, where I had been carrying it for a week, though I had not even let Bernard know that I had received it.”

“But you have not yet explained,” said the president, “how it was that seven years ago, when your cousin first came to live in your house, you armed yourself with a knife which you used to put under your pillow every night, after having it sharpened as if to defend yourself in case of need.”

“In my family,” she answered with a blush, “we have a somewhat romantic temperament and a very proud spirit.  It is true that I frequently thought of killing myself, because I felt an unconquerable affection for my cousin springing up in me.  Believing myself bound by indissoluble ties to M. de la Marche.  I would have died rather than break my word, or marry any other than Bernard.  Subsequently M. de la Marche freed me from my promise with much delicacy and loyalty, and I no longer thought of dying.”

Edmee now withdrew, followed by all eyes and by a murmur of approbation.  No sooner had she passed out of the hall than she fainted again; but this attack was without any grave consequences, and left no traces after a few days.