liciting permission
to see the prisoners, an event of the utmost importance had taken place
at the chateau.

Marthe returned to Cinq-Cygne as soon as she had given her testimony
before the indicting jury. This testimony was so insignificant that it
was not thought necessary to summon her before the Criminal court. Like
all persons of extreme sensibility, the poor woman sat silent in the
salon, where she kept company with Mademoiselle Goujet, in a pitiable
state of stupefaction. To her, as to the abbe, and indeed to all others
who did not know how the accused had been employed on that day, their
innocence seemed doubtful. There were moments when Marthe believed
that Michu and his masters and Laurence had executed vengeance on the
senator. The unhappy woman now knew Michu's devotion well enough to
be certain that he was the one who would be most in danger, not only
because of his antecedents, but because of the part he was sure to have
taken in the execution of the scheme.

The Abbe Goujet and his sister and Marthe were bewildered among the
possibilities to which this opinion gave rise; and yet, in the process
of thinking them over, their minds insensibly took hold of them in a
certain way. The absolute doubt which Descartes demands can no more
exist in the brain of a man than a vacuum can exist in nature, and the
mental operation required to produce it would, like the effect of a
pneumatic machine, be exceptional and anomalous. Whatever a case may
be, the mind believes in something. Now Marthe was so afraid that the
accused were guilty that her fear became equivalent to belief; and this
condition of her mind proved fatal to her.

Five days after the arrests, just as she was in the act of going to bed
about ten o'clock at night, she was called from the courtyard by her
mother, who had come from the farm on foot.

"A laboring man from Troyes wants to speak to you; he is sent by Michu,
and is waiting in the covered way," she said to Marthe.

They passed through the breach so as to take the shortest path. In the
darkness it was impossible for Marthe to distinguish anything more than
the form of a person which loomed through the shadows.

"Speak, madame; so that I may be certain you are really Madame Michu,"
said the person, in a rather anxious voice.

"I am Madame Michu," said Marthe; "what do you want of me?"

"Very good," said the unknown, "give me your hand; do not fear me. I
come," he added, leaning towards her