“Then, sir, not knowing what he did, he can not be guilty.”

The investigating magistrate forgot a certain troublesome question which he put to himself one morning in bed after his illness.

“Neither justice nor society, mademoiselle,” he replied, “can take that into account.  God alone, who sees into the depths of our hearts, can judge, can decide those questions which human justice must pass by.  In our eyes, M. de Commarin is a criminal.  There may be certain extenuating circumstances to soften the punishment; but the moral effect will be the same.  Even if he were acquitted, and I wish he may be, but without hope, he will not be less unworthy.  He will always carry the dishonour, the stain of blood cowardly shed.  Therefore, forget him.”

Mademoiselle d’Arlange stopped the magistrate with a look in which flashed the strongest resentment.

“That is to say,” she exclaimed, “that you counsel me to abandon him in his misfortune.  All the world deserts him; and your prudence advises me to act with the world.  Men behave thus, I have heard, when one of their friends is down; but women never do.  Look about you; however humiliated, however wretched, however low, a man may be, you will always find a woman near to sustain and console him.  When the last friend has boldly taken to flight, when the last relation has abandoned him, woman remains.”

The magistrate regretted having been carried away perhaps a little too far.  Claire’s excitement frightened him.  He tried, but in vain, to stop her.

“I may be timid,” she continued with increasing energy, “but I am no coward.  I chose Albert voluntarily from amongst all.  Whatever happens, I will never desert him.  No, I will never say, ‘I do not know this man.’  He would have given me half of his prosperity, and of his glory.  I will share, whether he wishes it or not, half of his shame and of his misfortune.  Between two, the burden will be less heavy to bear.  Strike!  I will cling so closely to him that no blow shall touch him without reaching me, too.  You counsel me to forget him.  Teach me, then, how to.  I forget him?  Could I, even if I wished?  But I do not wish it.  I love him.  It is no more in my power to cease loving him than it is to arrest, by the sole effort of my will, the beating of my heart.  He is a prisoner, accused of murder.  So be it.  I love him.  He is guilty!  What of that?  I love him.  You will condemn him, you will dishonour him.  Condemned and dishonoured, I shall love him still.  You will send him to a convict prison.  I will follow him; and in the prison, under the convict’s dress, I will yet love him.  If he falls to the bottom of the abyss, I will fall with him.  My life is his, let him dispose of it.  No, nothing will separate me from him, nothing short of death!  And, if he must mount the scaffold, I shall die, I know it, from the blow which kills him.”

M. Daburon had buried his face in his hands.  He did not wish Claire to perceive a trace of the emotion which affected him.