I was so bewildered, so intoxicated by what she had just said, that henceforth I could scarcely see what was taking place around me.  Wholly wrapped up in thoughts of my love, I nevertheless could not cast aside all doubts; for, if Edmee had been silent about some of my actions, it was also possible that she had exaggerated her affection for me in the hope of extenuating my faults.  I could not bring myself to think that she had loved me before my departure for America, and, above all, from the very beginning of my stay at Sainte-Severe.  This was the one thought that filled my mind; I did not even remember anything further about the case or the object of my trial.  It seemed to me that the sole question at issue in this chill Areopagus was this:  Is he loved, or is he not?  For me, victory or defeat, life or death, hung on that, and that alone.

I was roused from these reveries by the voice of Abbe Aubert.  He was thin and wasted, but seemed perfectly calm; he had been kept in solitary confinement and had suffered all the hardships of prison life with the resignation of a martyr.  In spite, however, of all precautions, the clever Marcasse, who could work his way anywhere like a ferret, had managed to convey to him a letter from Arthur, to which Edmee had added a few words.  Authorized by this letter to say everything, he made a statement similar to that made by Patience, and owned that Edmee’s first words after the occurrence had made him believe me guilty; but that subsequently, seeing the patient’s mental condition, and remembering my irreproachable behaviour for more than six years, and obtaining a little new light from the preceding trial and the public rumours about the possible existence of Antony Mauprat, he had felt too convinced of my innocence to be willing to give evidence which might injure me.  If he gave his evidence now, it was because he thought that further investigations might have enlightened the court, and that his words would not have the serious consequences they might have had a month before.

Questioned as to Edmee’s feelings for me, he completely destroyed all Mademoiselle Leblanc’s inventions, and declared that not only did Edmee love me ardently, but that she had felt an affection for me from the very first day we met.  This he affirmed on oath, though emphasizing my past misdeeds somewhat more than Edmee had done.  He owned that at first he had frequently feared that my cousin would be foolish enough to marry me, but that he had never had any fear for her life, since he had always seen her reduce me to submission by a single word or a mere look, even in my most boorish days.