es no astonishment, fails to
put them on their guard. She is made to own that all which had passed
between herself and Girard was merely the offspring of her own
diseased fancy; that all she had spoken of as real, at the bidding of
her brethren and the Carmelite, was nothing more than a dream. Not
content with whitening Girard, she must blacken her own friends, must
crush them, and put the halter round their necks.

Especially wonderful is the clearness of her deposition, the neat way
in which it is worded. The hand of the skilful clerk peeps out
therefrom. It is very strange, however, that now they are in so fair a
way, they do not follow it up. From the 27th to the 6th of March there
is no further questioning.

On the 28th, the poison having doubtless done its work, and plunged
her into a perfect stupor, or else a kind of Sabbatic frenzy, it was
impossible to bring her forth. After that, while her head was still
disordered, they could easily give her other potions of which she
would know and remember nothing. What happened during those six days
seems to have been so shocking, so sad for poor Cadiere, that neither
she nor her brother had the heart to speak of it twice. Nor would they
have spoken at all, had not the brethren themselves incurred a
prosecution aiming at their own lives.

Having won his cause through Cadiere's falsehood, Girard dared to come
and see her in her prison, where she lay stupefied or in despair,
forsaken alike of earth and heaven, and if any clear thoughts were
left her, possessed with the dreadful consciousness of having by her
last deposition murdered her own near kin. Her own ruin was complete
already. But another trial, that of her brothers and the bold
Carmelite, would now begin. She may in her remorse have been tempted
to soften Girard, to keep him from proceeding against them, above all
to save herself from being put to the torture. Girard, at any rate,
took advantage of her utter weakness, and behaved like the determined
scoundrel he really was.

Alas! her wandering spirit came but slowly back to her. It was on the
6th March that she had to face her accusers, to renew her former
admissions, to ruin her brethren beyond repair. She could not speak;
she was choking. The commissioners had the kindness to tell her that
the torture was there, at her side; to describe to her the wooden
horse, the points of iron, the wedges for jamming fast her bones. Her
courage failed her, so weak she was