“You do not wish to weaken my hope?” she said, not imagining that he could not think of this hope and of Florentin.  This was a path to lead him out of his confusion.  In following it he would have time to recover himself.

“It is true,” he said.

“You do not think that what Madame Dammauville saw proves Florentin’s innocence?”

“Would what may be a proof for Madame Dammauville, for you, and for me, be one in the eyes of the law?”

“However—­”

“I saw you so joyful that I did not dare to interrupt you.”

“Then you believe that this testimony is without value,” she murmured, feeling crushed.

“I do not say that.  We must reflect, weigh the pro and con, compass the situation from divers points of view; that is what I try to do, which is the cause of my preoccupation that astonishes you.”

“Say that it crushes me; I let myself be carried away.”

“You need not be crushed or carried away.  Certainly, what this lady told you forms a considerable piece of work.”

“Does it not?”

“Without any doubt.  But in order that the testimony she gives may be of great consequence, the witness must be worthy of trust.”

“Do you believe this lady could have invented such a story?”

“I do not say that; but before all, it is necessary to know who she is.”

“The widow of an attorney.”

“The widow of an attorney and landowner.  Evidently this constitutes a social status that merits consideration from the law; but the moral state, what is it?  You say that she is paralyzed?”

“She has been so a little more than a year.”

“Of what paralysis?  That is a vague word for us others.  There are paralyses that affect the sight; others that affect the mind.  Is it one of these with which this lady is afflicted, or one of the others, which permitted her really to see, the evening of the assassination, that which she relates, and which leaves her mental faculties in a sane condition?  Before everything, it is important to know this.”

Phillis was prostrated.

“I had not thought of all that,” she murmured.

“It is very natural that you had not; but I am a doctor, and while you talked it was the doctor who listened.”

“It is true, it is true,” she repeated.  “I only saw Florentin.”

“In your place I should have seen, like you, only my brother, and I should have been carried away by hope.  But I am not in your place.  It is by your voice that this woman speaks, whom I do not know, and against whom I must be on my guard, for the sole reason that it is a paralytic who has told this story.”

She could not restrain the tears that came to her eyes, and she let them flow silently, finding nothing to reply.

“I am sorry to pain you,” he said.

“I saw only Florentin’s liberty.”